The economic situation in Belarus in the near future will probably force the regime to sell plenty of its most profitable enterprises to Russia. As a consequence, Belarus will become more dependent on its eastern ...

As the Nobel peace prize nominee and human rights defender Ales Bialiatski continues to languish away in a penal colony in Belarus, his compatriots in Brussels attempt to secure his freedom and those of 10 other ...

Pro-democracy movements in oppressive states like Belarus will soon have access to grants through a new Brussels-based fund. Officially launched on Wednesday (9 January), the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) is a ...

EU ministers are on 15 October to discuss expanding Belarus sanctions. But somebody in Europe has had their hand in the cookie jar - or rather in Belarusian oil products, such as solvents and thinners - and they do not ...

A 37-year old man who had spent more than a year in a Belarus prison cell for planting an opposition flag on a Christmas tree in 2010 was set free on Wednesday (26 September). Over the course of his detention Sergey ...

A German-based firm has said that some of its engines may have been used for Belarus spy drones despite EU sanctions. The company, 3W Modellmotoren in Rodermark in southwest Germany, which makes stroke engines for small ...

A court in Vilnius ruled on Tuesday (28 August) to allow a Belarus oligarch and weapons tycoon currently under EU sanctions to pay his lawyer's fees in Lithuania. The court found insufficient grounds by Lithuania’s ...

EU countries have opted not to retaliate against Belarus in its diplomatic war on Sweden. They will instead tell Belarus' own envoys to EU capitals that the Union is not happy. They might also add more Belarusian ...

At the height of the summer, when European politics typically winds down, the EU finds itself in a diplomatic spat with one of its neighbours, the dictatorial regime of Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus. Last week, the ...

EU countries' diplomats expect a special meeting on Friday (10 August) to end with a mass pull-out of EU ambassadors from Belarus. The bad blood comes amid a worsening diplomatic dispute between Belarus and Sweden. ...

Belarus has kicked out Sweden's ambassador to Minsk in a rerun of events six months ago. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt tweeted on Friday (3 August) that the diplomat, Stefan Eriksson, was expelled "for being too ...

Ales Bialiatski, Nobel peace prize nominee, vice-president of the International Federation for Human Rights and president of the Belarusian human rights centre “Viasna” was arrested nearly a year ago on the 4th of ...

Europe’s last dictator, Alexander Lukashenka of Belarus, may have freed political prisoners Andrei Sannikov and Dmitry Bondarenko over Orthodox Easter but his actions are entirely disingenuous. This “act of mercy” ...

The EU has said it does not rule out adding more people to its Belarus sanctions list so long as repression continues. Minsk in April freed two prominent political prisoners - presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov and ...

Selling arms firms from yourself to yourself, labelling petrol as solvents then petrol again - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is trying to make a living while being squeezed by the EU and Russia. Lawyers in ...

It killed 695,000 people in the EU last year. But despite restaurant bans and gruesome health labels, the number of smokers is hardly going down. A European Commission survey published for the UN's international anti- ...

All EU ambassadors are returning to Minsk in a bid to improve deteriorating relations with Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko, in power for the past 18 years. “All EU ambassadors are returning to Minsk, including our ...

Belarus has freed two prominent political prisoners - former presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov and his aide Dmitry Bondarenko - in a bid to mend EU relations. The two men were incarcerated last year for allegedly ...

The Diamond - an elite special forces unit in Belarus - is the personal security detail of President Alexander Lukashenko. In a secret location outside the country, a former Diamond officer, Igor Makar, spoke to ...

EU ambassadors are to return en bloc to Belarus shortly after the Easter break, unless President Alexander Lukashenko does something drastic in the meantime. EU diplomats say the decision was made behind closed doors in ...

The drive toward the site of Belarus' future nuclear power plant goes through tall pine and white birch trees. The woods here, and in nearby Bialowieza, are among Europe's last primordial forests. Located near the ...

Money from the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has been distributed to individuals connected to Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, according to a career politician in the ...

Lucrative oil and petrochemical contracts between the EU and Belarus help keep the former Soviet republic's economy afloat. Belarus declared a €2.5 billion trade surplus in 2011 after trade between the two sides shot up ...

Alexander Lukaschenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 18 years. MEPs from the European Parliament's Belarus delegation discuss the merits of putting economic sanctions on Belarus with Nikolaj Nielsen, EUobserver ...

Anastasia Shuleika was expelled from Belarus State University on 14 February for speaking out against President Alexander Lukashenko. The rector of the university is Sergei Vladimirovich Ablameiko. His name is one of ...

One of three statesmen whose signature dissolved the Soviet Union, the former head of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich still views ridding the country of its nuclear arsenal as his greatest ...

Slovenia flat-out denies getting a Belarusian company off the latest EU sanctions list for the sake of a few million euros. But the French foreign minister says it did. EU countries on Friday (23 March) blackballed two ...

The large, red 2014 World Ice Hockey Championship billboards and posters adorning walls in the Belarus capital are unlikely to come down anytime soon. Despite international pressure to pull the venue from Minsk, a ...

True to his image as Europe's last dictator, Belarus' Alexander Lukashenko has just added two more crimes to a long list of repressions against his own people. Most tragically, he denied pardon to two young men ...

Underground culture is flourishing in the heart of Belarus despite regime attempts to establish control. In public, the residents of Minsk consume a cocktail of Western pop culture and lumbering propaganda: concert ...

Large banners, written in Chinese characters, cordon off a zone on the outskirts of Minsk. An entire Chinese neighbourhood is under construction, with shops and towering residences soon to emerge from the vast fields of ...

Even as President Alexander Lukashenko becomes increasingly cruel and unusual, the EU capital is seeing an unprecedented amount of lobbying on his behalf. Mid-level diplomats will this week discuss who else to add to ...

A cell in a top security penal colony in eastern Belarus is now home to human rights defender Ales Bialistki, a man whose relentless pursuit of freedom for his fellow citizens is costing him four and a half years' hard ...

Eighteen years in power and counting, Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko retains a mesmerising hold on a country whose public spaces still glorify the mythological beasts of Soviet-era rule. Towering bronze statues of ...

'Belarus - Europe's last dictatorship' is the second in a series of investigative reports by EUobserver. The report sheds light on Europe's most isolated nation and EU policy towards it. It is published in two parts.

Caught between the competing geopolitical interests of its neighbours, Belarus President Alexander Lukashanko has managed to position himself as a strategic buffer between Europe and Russia. EUobserver's Nikolaj Nielsen ...

Nikolaj Nielsen is a Danish-American journalist working for EUobserver in Brussels. He won a King Baudouin Foundation grant for investigative journalism in 2010.

Belarus has executed two men despite an international appeal for clemency, just as EU countries start talks on whether to impose extra sanctions. On Saturday (17 March) Liubou Kavaliova received a 40-word-long note on ...

EU diplomats will on Friday (17 March) discuss whether to send back their ambassadors to Minsk following a diplomatic row over sanctions. Foreign relations spokesowman Maja Kocjancic told EUobserver on Friday morning ...

As EU ambassadors begin leaving Minsk for home, both sides are already preparing fresh counter-measures against each other. One of the EU envoys said he and his peers will trickle away by car and plane before the ...

The EU has recalled all its ambassadors from Belarus in a tit-for-tat dispute over sanctions. Foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton after meeting her EU crisis group, the Political and Security Committee on Tuesday ...

Fellow EU countries have blamed Slovenia for denigrating the rights of political prisoners in Belarus in order to protect a business deal on a luxury hotel in Minsk. The country's foreign minister, Karl Erjavec, on ...

Yuri Chizh, a big-time bankroller of Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, could get off the hook after Slovenia stalled the latest round of EU sanctions, prompting concern it is putting petty commercial interests before ...

Last week the Belarusian interior minister, Anatoly Kulyashou, travelled to France for a conference at Interpol in Lyon. This may not appear out of the ordinary. But he is wanted for questioning amid allegations of ...

Belarus will only become a democracy when Russia does, Brussels-based opposition campaigner Olga Stuzhinkaya has said, noting that the EU does not figure highly on authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko's Russia- ...

On 19 December one year ago, 50 000 people gathered at Independence Square in central Minsk to protest the reelection of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. His response was decisive and violent. Around 600 were ...

European students have warned that Belarus should not be allowed to join the EU-led higher education zone due to the ongoing repression of students and academics. The European Students’ Union issued an appeal on ...

The jailing for four and a half years of well-known human rights campaigner Ales Bilalitski in Belarus has prompted EU diplomats to get more creative in the way they handle President Aleksander Lukashenko. The EU visa ...

A new project for economic integration proposed by Russia's prime minister to create a Eusian Union based on the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus is a major challenge for the European Union. The EU should ...