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EUROPE – NEARBY AND REMOTE

Although the relations between the official Minsk and the West are below the freezing point for a long time already, attitude of the Belarusians to the West, in particular to the united Europe, is totally positive. Answers of respondents show that nowadays 52.8% of Belarusians want that Belarus joins the EU (against – 44.4%).

The percentage of respondents standing for country’s accession to the EU constantly vacillates and the maximum value (61%) was registered, according to our opinion polls, in December of 2002. However, for the past several years this figure didn’t drop below 50%. This attitude of the Belarusians to Europe is still very controversial, though. For example, the polling data shows that not all those willing accession to the EU think good about the united Europe. (See Table 1).

Table 1. Distribution of answers to the question “What is your attitude to the European Union (EU)?”

Variant of answer

%

Positive

43.9

Indifferent

27.9

Negative

10.9

I don’t know what it is

5.5

Certain controversy of the above data can be explained by the following. In their attitude to the EU, a part of respondents (about 10%) was led by the “we go where all go” approach. To put it differently, “Perhaps, we won’t benefit much from accession to the EU but this won’t damage us either; the neighbors join the EU and live, so may be we should join it as well.” One of the basic motives why they want to join the EU is openness of the Belarusians to the world, their willingness to travel freely to the East and to the West. This is the opinion of 65.2% of respondents, and only 27.5% spoke out against.

At the same time, for most Belarusians, Europe is no more than a TV picture and stories of the friends as only 25.7% of respondents traveled to the EU countries, to the same countries mainly. (See Table 2).

Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question “If you have traveled to EU countries, to which in particular?” (open question, more than one answer is possible)

Variant of answer

%

Poland

14.8

Germany

6.8

Lithuania

3.6

Latvia

2.4

France

2.0

Czech Republic

2.0

Italy

1.4

Other EU countries (under 1% each)

4.3

The fact that most Belarusian citizens have never traveled abroad opens up vast possibilities of manipulating with public conscience and allows building the image of enemy from the West in general and from the EU in particular. (See Table 3).

Table 3. Dynamics of answer distribution to the question “In your opinion, what poses threat to the development of Belarus?”, % (more than one answer is possible)

Variant of answer

03’04

03’05

Nothing threats Belarus

35.9

27.3

West

17.9

27.0

Belarusian authorities

21.7

19.3

Belarusian opposition

11.5

15.4

Russia

8.7

3.8

Other source

1.1

3.3

Comparing with the past year, the feeling of threat from the West has increased significantly. One of the reasons is possibly the informational counterattack of the Belarusian state-run mass media against the unfavorable Western estimates of the Belarusian referendum as well as interpretation of the recent Ukrainian events presented by the Russian and Belarusian state-run mass media as subversive activity of the West. Perhaps, these factors have also indirectly influenced the feeling of increasing threat from the Belarusian opposition. The following data reveals that perception of the West as a threat is closely related with the internal political preferences. Thus, 41.4% of those ready to vote for A. Lukashenko at the presidential election and only 13.4% of those who won’t vote for A. Lukashenko mentioned the West as a prospective threat.

A Belarusian citizen who draws information about the world from the national TV channels or from the state-run newspapers Sovetskaya Belorussia (Soviet Belarus) and Respublika (Republic) may really believe that the NATO troops have been already preparing their bombers to launch the Operation Bog Storm. However, when it comes to the issues that people know from their experience and from the words of their acquaintances, faith in myths yields to the knowledge of reality.

Among the hindrances and obstacles in the way of the Belarusians to Europe stand mostly the frontier procedures rather than lack of money, visa barrier at the eastern border and poor knowledge of foreign languages. The respondents were unanimous about who is to blame of such an order. (See Table 4).

Table 4. Distribution of answers to the question “Many citizens going abroad complain about waiting for long at the check points before crossing the Belarusian border. Who is to blame, you think?”

Variant of answer 

%

Belarusian frontier bodies

35.0

Frontier bodies of Poland

4.9

Frontier bodies of Latvia

4.0

Frontier bodies of Ukraine

2.8

Frontier bodies of Lithuania

1.9

The feeling of increasing threat from the West mentioned in Table 3 is still very restricted, especially since the respondents mean the USA rather than the European Union. Thus, in our June’04 opinion poll, 44.3% of respondents said the USA poses threat to Belarus and only 7.4% named the EU.

This is why no wonder that most polled appear unpatriotic in both the practical issue of borderline procedures and the top-level European politics laying blame for tense relations between Belarus and united Europe on the Belarusian authorities mainly. (See Table 5).

Table 5. Distribution of answers to the question “Why do you think the EU doesn’t co-operate actively with the Belarusian government?” (open question, more than one answer is possible)

Variant of answer

%

Belarusian government is the main cause

29.5

European Union doesn’t need Belarus

11.9

Crisis in the Belarusian economics

6.4

Belarus is a non-democratic country

4.2

Belarus don’t look to joining the EU

3.8

Other

2.2

The above data don’t give us grounds to say that the desire to join the united Europe have now turned dominant in the Belarusian society. Attitude to the western neighbor is still controversial as the Belarusians know little about it and especially about the cost of the way to the EU. At the same time, it is obvious that anti-European xenophobia is unnatural for the Belarusian society in general. Pro-European moods and willingness to take the EU as a good neighbor and friend, if not a brother, become a peculiar trait of public conscience.