Eggs of Europe

Relations between the European Union and Belarus today are more reminiscent of the relationship of incompatible but indecisive spouses: they constantly throw scandals at each other, leave and return, but the last step - divorce - will not be decided.

The recall of the ambassadors of all 27 EU member states from Belarus is, of course, a strong step. But it is unlikely that this demarche of European diplomats in itself greatly upset Alexander Lukashenko. The President of Belarus has one indisputable feature - he is a connoisseur of the basest human qualities. In 1998, when he expelled the American ambassador from his own residence and when European diplomats left Minsk as a sign of solidarity, I remember the words of Alexander Grigoryevich: “Where will they go? They will return, of course. Here they are ambassadors, important people, but there they are just employees of the Foreign Ministry.”
And so it happened - they all returned. And in 2008, when Lukashenka, in his own words, “kicked out” the American ambassador, a woman, no one showed solidarity with her. On the contrary, just a few months later, the European Union began a game of liberalization with Lukashenka, and financial injections from the West helped him survive during the trade wars with Russia in 2009-2010.
The most effective way to communicate with Lukashenka has been suggested by the Belarusian opposition for the second year already. The fact is that he is a person who understands and respects only one argument - strength. Therefore, the only weighty argument against the Belarusian dictatorship is full-scale pressure. We are talking about a complete economic blockade of Belarus from the West and the closure of borders for the supply of Belarusian products to the European Union, primarily oil products and potash fertilizers. For the EU, Belarusian oil products account for only 2% of imports. So Europe will most likely manage without the products of the Mozyr Oil Refinery and Naftan and will not even experience much discomfort. But for Lukashenka, this is a loss of almost half of the budget.
However, Europe is still in no hurry to move from threats to their implementation. On the contrary, trade with the EU countries in 2011 increased by 62.2% compared to 2010, while exports grew 2.1 times. And all against the backdrop of continuous promises of sanctions from the West after the events of December 19, 2010.
In reality, it turns out that the West, on the one hand, has been calling, criticizing, threatening all this time, and on the other hand, participating in the financing of the Belarusian dictatorship. In Brussels, they justified this softness by saying that economic pressure would hit ordinary Belarusians. Nonsense! Belarusians don’t care about the supply of oil - the income from it goes primarily to the maintenance of Lukashenko’s secret police and guardsmen. „

Over the 18 years that the Old Man has been at the helm, several generations of European politicians have changed. And everyone, having come to power, reasoned like this: my predecessors failed, but I’m smarter, I’ll re-educate Lukashenka

“In one thing, I think Lukashenka is right – that is when, in a recent interview with Russian journalist Sergei Dorenko, he talked about the “lack of eggs” among Europeans. Over the 18 years that the Old Man has been at the helm, several generations of European politicians have changed. And each of them, having come to power, with regard to Belarus, argued as follows: my predecessors did not succeed, but I am smarter, I will re-educate Lukashenka. And it turns out zilch, because the Belarusian autocrat learns only what he himself wants to learn. I once told German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder about this: Lukashenka is not amenable to either education or suggestion. And as an example, he cited the results of the visit of our collective farm dictator to France in 1996. There he was told about the French electoral system, about local self-government, about independent media. Lukashenka drew only one conclusion from everything he saw: in France, the term of office of the president is 7 years (this rule was in effect until 2002. - The New Times), and he has 5. And returning to Minsk, he offered to throw himself an additional two years ...
Schroeder laughed for a long time. But then he repeated the same mistakes.