Belarus’s oscillating foreign policy toward the EU: from engagement to retrenchment (1994–2021)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Belarusian foreign policy toward the EU has been variable under President Aliaksandr Lukashenka. It has oscillated between periods of engagement, aimed at improving/deepening relations with the bloc, and periods of retrenchment in response to EU sanctions for violations of human rights. In this article the author applies Elena Gnedina’s concept of “multi-vector” foreign policy to explain attempts to improve relations with the EU from 2007 to 2010 and from 2013 to 2020. The author analyzes these attempts by focusing on actors, objectives, and instruments. Changes in these variables help us periodize Belarusian “multi-vector” foreign policy and discern its implicit meanings, with the ultimate goals of (1) understanding what motivated Belarusian political elites to change their foreign policy toward the EU, and (2) building an analytical framework that weighs different institutional constraints on the formulation of foreign policy toward the EU.