Representative Of European Commission Announces New Assistance Package For Civil Society In Belarus

It's about 100 million euros.

The European Union "will announce new assistance package for Belarusian civil society" worth €100 million in a few weeks, Jeroen Willems, deputy head for Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Eastern Partnership of the European Commission's Directorate General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations, said, BPN reports.

December 1, the official took part in an online discussion on the sustainability of Belarusian civil society, organized by the office of Svetlana Tikhanouskaya and the Oxford Observatory on Belarus.

According to Willems, the EU considers it important "to invest in people in order to create a stable civil society," as well as "to support independent media."

"We admire your resilience and fight in spite of repression and shrinking space for civil society, working in such difficult conditions," he said. - The Belarusians are a great inspiration to us. We are ready to continue to support their steadfastness and resistance. <...> Support for the Belarusian people is at the very core of our efforts. We annually accept aid packages for Belarus".

The representative of the European Commission noted that in 2021, support for Belarusian civil society had been increased. At the same time, "there is a desire to provide more sustainable support to organizations and people so that they could continue their activities".

"We are now thinking about what we will do not only this year and next year, but for the next three years," he stressed.

Willems notes that the EU used to support Belarusian civil society organizations directly, "but they unfortunately no longer exist or have moved away. Now we are looking for such organizations, which could "help with small initiatives inside the country, but to have more projects that can influence the situation" while being abroad.

According to him, it is important for the Belarusian civil society organizations, which are abroad, to be in contact with the initiatives inside the country, despite the fact that it is difficult to establish communication in the current situation.

The representative of the European Commission also stressed the importance of support of different sectors, including business in exile, culture and development of the Belarusian national identity and education.