In the first quarter of 2015 there was a record drop of the share of “Euro-Belarusians”, i.e. the respondents who spoke in favor of integration of Belarus into the EU. At the same time there was a slight increase of the share of supporters of integration with Russia. However this didn’t lead to an identification of interests of Russia and Belarus as equal. Majority of Belarusians don’t want Belarus to join Russian counter-sanctions against the EU countries.
March 2015 survey registered a historical minimum of pro-European inclinations in Belarus – the share of supporters of euro-integration dropped below 25% (Graph 1).
In September 2014 the share of “Euro-Belarusians” was almost the same, though, while the share of opponents of euro-integration was even higher. However, there was a significant decrease of the share of adherents of Belarus joining the EU.
At the same time the number of supporters of integration with Russia slightly increased (Graph 2).
The answers to the question on a dichotomy political choice confirm these changes (Graph 3).
By the look of things, the main reason for the decrease of pro-European inclinations over the past year was the Ukrainian factor, as majority of Belarusian society agrees with the Russian version of events in Crimea and conflict in Donbass, while the West and the EU in particular support Kiev’s position.
However these oscillations (pro-European moods dropped in March 2015 even in relation to the low December level) could have had some other reasons.
Surely, the formulation “Je suis Charlie” doesn’t describe the reaction on the murder of Parisian cartoonists in all Europe. However, it has even lesser relation to the attitude of Belarusians to this crime (Graph 4). Religious fanatism is not proper to Belarusians, but the majority of them cannot say “Je suis Charlie”, as you can see it. It is quite probable that this apparent gap in systems of values led to a certain decline of pro-European moods.
However, neither this circumstance, nor the growth of pro-Russian moods means that Belarusians started to identify their interests and interests of their country with the interests of the ally and partner in integration (Graph 5).
The number of respondents, supporting sanctions against Russia, turned out to be 5 times as low as the number of adherents of joining the EU. However, the number of those, who are ready to support Russia, to make sacrifices for the ally, turned out to be significantly lower (by 2.5 times) as the number of those who wish to integrate “the big brother”. An imposing majority preferred their country not to join the conflict on either side.
This demonstrates that certain indices of geopolitical preferences of Belarusians shouldn’t be interpreted unambiguously as readiness to identify their interests with the interests of one or another geopolitical “pole”. This choice is often nothing more than readiness to enjoy all advantages of certain integration vector avoiding losses related to it.
The answers to the question on who’s to blame in “the food war”, which broke out between Belarus and Russia in the end of the past year, are also quite typical (Graph 6).
The odds in favor of those who blame Moscow over those who blame Minsk for the conflict are more than 3-fold, but it is quite revealing that the variant of mutual fault was the most popular one. It seems that this is not due to a lack of patriotism, but to life philosophy of Belarusians: they perceive a conflict as an abnormality and a threat, they are convinced, that both sides are always to blame in a conflict and that a compromise is better than a confrontation. At least, in regard to Russia this reaction is quite frequent.
At the same time the relative majority of Belarusians negatively evaluate sanctions against their own country, and the evaluations became more negative in comparison with the period when those sanctions were introduced (Table 1).
Table 1. Dynamics of attitude to Western sanctions in relation to Belarus, %
|
Variant of answer
|
06’11*
|
09’11**
|
03’15***
|
|
Positive
|
25.6
|
19.5
|
16.9
|
|
Negative
|
33.3
|
40.6
|
36.8
|
|
Indifferent
|
32.8
|
39.6
|
37.8
|
|
DA/NA
|
8.3
|
0.3
|
8.5
|
* “The EU and the USA broaden the sanctions against the leadership of Belarus: they forbade their countries to almost 200 of Belarusian officials, judges and journalists headed by A. Lukashenko, because they are considered to be guilty of falsification of results of presidential elections and repressions against participants of peaceful protests. Some people think this is good, others think this is bad. What is your opinion?”
** “Recently the EU and the USA have introduced new economic sanctions against several Belarusian enterprises, because their incomes are considered to strengthen political regime which suppresses democracy and human rights. How do you evaluate introduction of these sanctions?”
*** “Several years ago the EU and the USA have introduced sanctions against the leadership of Belarus. They have forbidden their countries to 250 of Belarusian officials, judges and journalists headed by A. Lukashenko, because they are considered to be guilty of falsification of results of presidential elections and repressions against participants of peaceful protests. Later they have introduced economic sanctions against several Belarusian enterprises, because their incomes are considered to strengthen political regime which suppresses democracy and human rights. How do you evaluate introduction of these sanctions”
In February a summit of Germany, Russia, Ukraine and France was held in Minsk. On this summit the leaders of these countries had signed treaties on settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. The role of Belarusian side didn’t seem to the respondents to be defining, but this role brought to the President some dividends of popular sympathies (Graph 7).
Both organization of aforementioned negotiations and other aspects of official Minsk’ policy led to another growth of positive evaluations of this policy (Graph 8).
Electoral rating of the current president significantly decreased over the quarter – from 40% down to 34.2%. There is no doubt that main reason for this lies in the economic crisis which broke out in Belarus in the end of 2014. However, rating drop was not that significant as we could have imagined. Unlike in 2011 there was no collapse. Besides, trust rating of A. Lukashenko remained almost the same: in December 2014 it amounted to 49.9%, in March 2015 – to 48.8%.
From our point of view, Ukrainian policy of official Minsk was a certain counter-balance to the crisis: success on the diplomatic field had partially compensated failures on the economic field.