On April 28 the "European club" Viciebsk head of the department of the Embassy of the Swiss Confederation in the Republic of Belarus, Mr. Aebischer Pascal met with representatives of the democratic community of the city and the region. The meeting took place in an atmosphere of mutual understanding and a lively discussion.
Opening the event, Christopher Zhelyapau, acted as moderator, introduced Aebischer Pascal with the audience. The meeting was presented almost the entire range of non-governmental organizations of the Viciebsk region.
In turn, the representative of the Swiss Confederation has complained about the lack of a full-fledged Belarus Embassy of his country and explained the reason for his visit to Viciebsk: meeting with civil society representatives of the region he needed to create a complete picture of the processes taking place inside Belarus.
The Swiss Embassy in Belarus acts since 2006, however, the trade turnover between our countries is just over 200 million euros per year, mostly imported from Switzerland to Belarus.
During the conversation the members of non-governmental organizations spoke about the legal, social, political and economic problems that exist in the country, and about his vision to resolve them.
As head of the public non-governmental organization "Local government and society" Christopher Zhelyapau diplomat drew attention to the existing problem of freedom of association, which arose as a result of the deterioration of the state's attitude towards the third sector organizations. So, if at the beginning of two-thousand years in the Viciebsk region, there were more than 200 non-governmental organizations and civil initiatives (more than one hundred of which have been registered), then to the present time the number of companies decreased by more than twice, and only where a fourth of them has official registration. Attention was drawn, and the existence of the problem of freedom of expression and freedom to hold demonstrations.
Opposition leader Alexei Gavrutikov led a terrifying example of legal exotic to change the electoral law by the will of the two entities: Chairman of the Central Election Commission and the Head of State. And the adopted amendments no legal expertise of the Ministry of Justice did not take place and the legal basis of legal documents is not recorded. Irony causes and recently voiced innovation: now the members of election commissions will be closing their backs table for counting votes only on three sides. This innovation will allow observers to monitor the vote count without looking back through the Electoral Commission – a significant achievement for the democratization of the electoral process.
Yuri Nagorny, as a member of the TBM, asked the diplomat to share the experience of coexistence in Switzerland four national languages, telling about the discriminatory attitude on the part of local officials in the Belarusian language.
Aebischer Pascal said that the Swiss are very pragmatic and intelligent nation. According to the diplomat, voiced in the press recently about the offer unconditional payment of the monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs, submitted to referendum is rejected by a majority of votes. Rejected for one simple reason: it is not economically viable. Here they are Swiss.
In contrast to the Swiss management of post-Soviet Belarus hardly be suspected of such a person can not understand the local pragmatism. Therefore, everything is so confusing and not transparent for the European view.
In the ensuing conversation, many speakers have tried to convey to the diplomat, the idea that despite the lifting of sanctions and liberalization of relations with the West is not going to be modernized mode either politically or economically. But, as it seemed to many members of the third sector, although the Swiss diplomat separates and takes the basic democratic values, its approach to the assessment of events occurring inside Belarus, based solely on the principles of Real Politics.
S. Horki
