In our June forecast we have expressed an assumption that the "new course" worked out by the Russian leadership towards Belarus does not provide for personal contacts of the presidents. The previous month confirmed this assumption. Neither the informal summit of the leaders of the CIS in St. Petersburg where all the twelve presidents gathered for the first time in the last years, nor the "presidential races" which occurred on the last day of June in Rostov warranted such a meeting. The agreements concerning gas and oil reached in December-January are being fulfilled. Carbohydrates arrive properly, and the customs give the right to deliver the goods and at the same time take the goods away in the form of export duties in the same proper way. It is difficult to make any alterations in this routine. Even the threat of placing some elements of an American anti-missile defense system in Eastern European countries is not able to encourage a dialogue between the presidents. If such a dialogue actually takes place, it happens not in Minsk, but at the family estate of the American president.
Meanwhile, on the shortest day of the year June, 21 the EU excluded Belarus from the General system of preferences. The decision was made at the suggestion of the International Organization of Labor (IOL) owing to systematic violation of the right of Belarusian working people to establish trade unions of their own free will. Inevitability of the exclusion was obvious. There is no room for the structures of a civil society in a state "for people" if they are not created under the direct guidance of the authorities. Introduction of the Grodno initiative to establish a non-government organization "White Russia" is a visual proof of it.
Let us quote a fragment of our June forecast: "In general, economic and political stability is going to remain in June, but the authorities should seriously concern themselves with the increase of pensions, otherwise A. Lukashenko's rate will start falling". The increase of pensions did not occur, but the government in the person of vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers V. Burya took a step along the lines. According to the official statement, pensioners will be made happy twice before the end of the year: pensions are to be increased first by 8% and then once again by 4%.
Our forecast regarding the activities of the opposition has partly come true as well. We supposed they would be either confronted with the choice of a specific program within the framework of the adopted strategy, or their activity would be confined to the habitual limits of the "hangout" until the next parliamentary elections. As if they heard our supposition, the leaders of the United Democratic Forces (UDF) have decided to act according to a fashionable now principle "two in one". They made up their mind to concentrate the efforts on discussing their participation in the forth-coming parliamentary elections.

IISEPS executive board

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