We present the first issue of the Belarus' Foreign Policy Index – an analytical report assessing the key trends in international relations engaging Belarus. This issue analyzes four Belarus’ foreign political vectors: its relations with the European Union, with Russia, with China and with “Third World” countries. The objective of the International Monitoring is to not only record and categorize changes in Belarus’ external political efforts and the country’s standing on the international scene, but also provide a forecast for future developments in the key foreign policy areas.
Belarus’ accession to a customs union with Russia and Kazakhstan and the presidential election late in 2010 dramatically affected Belarus’ international standing. One might say that official Minsk got back to its “single-vector” foreign policy and isolation from the West after the December 19 events. The matter does not seem unambiguous, though, as various interests clash and fight both inside Belarus and beyond it, capable of markedly adjusting the country’s foreign political vectors and changing the situation, if not to the opposite, then at least to something substantially different from what is observed now. The primary objective of this issue of the International Monitoring, encompassing the period from January 1 through March 31, 2011, is to figure out where exactly Belarus stands in the framework of international politics, and what modifications can be expected in a few months to come.
We expect that the International Monitoring will be issued once in two months, increasingly covering a broader range of Belarus’ foreign political relations. We hope you will share your views and suggestions with us to make the Monitoring better and more interesting.
Read the full text of the monitoring in pdf
