Andrius Kubilius: I Don’t See Any Issues For Belarus To Become EU Member State

People are just to express their will in the future.

Does the European Union welcome Belarus? How will the West build its relations with Russia after the victory of Ukraine? What are the common features of the late USSR and Putin's Russia? MEP Andrius Kubilius, the Former Prime Minister of Lithuania, spoke about it in an interview with Charter97.org.

– How should the EU react to the announced deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus?

– For the time being Belarus is semi-occupied by Russians. Lukashenka allows to use Belarusian territory for the war. He collaborates in international crime.

Lukashenka allows to use the territory of Belarus to deploy nuclear weapons to threaten everybody around. However, I do not see a big military achievement in this propaganda initiative, because Russia has enough capabilities, long-distance missiles which they can use from the territory of Russia. What is the military benefit for Russia to bring nuclear arms into Belarus is not very clear. This is some kind of provocation, which sends a clear signal to those who are in charge of strategies of the West that for them "it is worse" to support Ukrainian victory.

The only way how we can remove this permanent threat from Russia - which also takes under control Belarus - is a geopolitical transformation of Russia itself.

– Not so long ago, Lukashenka has made a number of seemingly irrational moves: he reportedly was sick, but while being sick, he went to Moscow, then, he suddenly flew away, then, he again went to Moscow, but disappeared for three days. What do you make of this erratic behaviour of the dictator?

– The question is how much personal freedom he has to behave as he wants. We don't know. What powers, what instruments does the Kremlin have to influence his behavior? We can only guess.

I don't know about his health condition, but I would not be surprised if at some moment the Kremlin decided that they wanted to change Lukashenka — because of different reasons — that would not be anything very exceptional.

For the time being, the Western community's possibilities to influence the developments in Lukashenka's surroundings are very limited. In general, changes in Belarus will come with Ukrainian victory in the war.

– And if the war ends up with some sort of Minsk-3 agreement between the West and Russia, on which side of the Iron Curtain Belarus would be in that case?

– It depends very much on the strategy of the West. That is why I speak out about what I call sustainable peace on the European continent: the total defeat of the Russian Army, Ukraine's membership in NATO and in the EU, the geopolitical reconstruction of the Eastern part of the European continent.

Sustainable peace - and this is the only way - will mean that Russia would need to transform itself to a normal type of development: to democracy. Democracies do not fight each other. Sustainable peace on the European continent should be a clear strategic geopolitical goal for the West. I feel that the West is moving in that direction, but very slowly.

In case this sustainable peace will be achieved, then, definitely, I see all the possibilities for Belarus to become a part of the European community, to move towards the European Union and to create your own Belarusian success. Russia, perhaps, will not become a member of the EU, but the EU can provide different instruments in its relationships with democratic Russia.

If, however, there will be only Minsk-3 agreement, and part of the territory of Ukraine would be still occupied by Russia, Putin will try to portray that as his victory. And then it would be a very big question of whether political changes can happen in Russia. It would be very difficult to predict that changes will come to Belarus. Minsk-3 agreement would mean that things would be kept as they are now, which would mean no sustainable peace in the future.

– Do you see Belarus in the EU in the future?

– I see Moldova, Ukraine going into the EU. With political changes, with democracy, Belarus can go the same way as the Baltic states did. I do not see any issues for Belarus to become a member of the EU - it is the question only of national will. It might come from a very rational understanding of which direction would bring success to Belarus. In my view, in all the post-Soviet-block area, there is no single example of success when staying alone without integration towards the EU. That is what Belarusians need to understand also. If Belarusians want success, there is a possibility to do like all other successful countries did.

If Russia will stay with Putin, then we can imagine that Moscow would very much oppose the Belarusian movement towards the EU.

– The key in this future vision is total Ukrainian victory. But Russia has unlimited natural resources (that means unlimited source of income); it has a huge population (so Putin can sustain a war of attrition for a long time); and it has nuclear weapons. So, where are the vulnerabilities in this military foe? What is the path to the victory?

– I would ask another question. Why did Perestroika start in the middle of the 1980s? There were the same conditions: the Soviet Union had plenty of resources, plenty of nuclear arms, huge population — but suddenly there was a decision to start some kind of internal reforms.

This decision was done not by Gorbachev, it was the decision of the elite, of Andropov and the others who rationally forecasted that if such kind of reforms would not be started, the Soviet Union would collapse - because of the poor economy, the war in Afghanistan, and many other reasons. They were not able to forecast whether those reforms would bring the Soviet Union back to life, and in the end, the Soviet Union collapsed.

The conditions now are very similar, although, possibly there is a need for more time. The economy is not in good shape. Sanctions are working: oil and gas revenues are going down. If the West will be effective in not allowing Russia to have access to high tech through third countries, then very soon, perhaps, conditions in Russia will be very similar to those of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Read the last-year-January statement by the so-called Association of Russian Officers, announced by retired general Ivashov. He is not a democrat, but he spoke about an existential threat to Russia itself if the war would be started.

– After the collapse of the Soviet Union the West opened its arms towards Russia and provided big aid in exchange for promises of democratization. If the West would do something similar this time then the question is why should that approach would work now if it did not work in the 1990s?

– I believe in the so-called theory of the waves of democratization, as described by Samuel Huntington in his famous book The Third Wave. During the 20th century, there were three waves of democratization: the 1920s, then after the Second World War, and then in the 80-90s. We are the product of this third wave. He uses this metaphor of the wave which covers new territories like the ocean and then it retracts. Usually, the country, which is the first time covered by democracy, this democracy does not survive for a long period of time. Why does it not survive? People expect miracles from the reforms — miracles do not happen. Also, there is nostalgia for the past.

We went through similar developments back in the 1990s. In 1992, Lithuanians voted for the former Communist Party. Why? Because of dissatisfaction, the developments were very high and nostalgia for the past immediately started to spread around. What helped us? Perspective to join the European Union.

Russia had no such prospect. There are different opinions about how much the West opened its arms to Russia under Yeltsin. Some experts say it was quite limited and not effective enough to overcome that nostalgia.

If we want sustainable democracy in Russia we need to understand very clearly which challenges a renewed democracy will face, and ask the question of what can we do in order to assist that democracy to stabilize and become sustainable.

Why did the Americans decide to implement the Marshall Plan after the Second World War? It was very similar: because they saw that after the Second World War, the democracy in Western Europe was very fragile in the economy which was destroyed by the war. If Americans did not come up with the Marshall Plan, then Stalin would extend his influence through the dissatisfaction of the peoples with the help of local communists.

I am not saying that after the war the West should come with a big package of money to Russia. It is the opposite: Russians will need to pay the damages. But to look into what we can do in order to stabilize Russian democracy — that is our obligation. That is why we need to start to develop some sort of a strategic view on what will be the relationships between the EU and the West in general and democratic Russia. That would help us now to convince the Russian people that there will be life after Putin. It is very important to be prepared to do everything necessary to help nascent Russian democracy maintain its stability.

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