Expert comments on Lukashenko's signal to foreign businesses
President Aleksandr Lukashenko has recently once again explicitly warned foreign businesses: Belarus will not suffer if they go away from the country. Brands have left the market, while production, technology and people have remained. The President stated that nationalisation should follow. This announcement has been proclaimed undemocratic by destructive channels but political expert Aleksandr Shpakovsky explained that it should not be otherwise.
“I would like to address people from the business sphere, our certain elite who began to express doubts about the legality of such approaches and whether they would affect the investment climate in Belarus, who started to talk about how potential investors would look at the situation (when we are allegedly taking someone's property): no need to take everything literally," Mr. Shpakovsky noted in his talk with Alfa Radio. “The President outlined the vector of movement: these enterprises and these jobs – despite their foreign owners’ voluntary decision to leave our market – should be preserved in the Belarusian economy. This is primarily a concern about labour collectives. People should not suffer as a result. The country needs to focus on these enterprises and further develop their respective competencies or repurpose them. Actually, the point is that we should maintain this economic activity. This is the direction set by the Head of State.”
As regard legal justification, no one takes these companies away based on the principle of finders keepers, losers weepers. “There will be a legal justification, including in accordance with the investment agreements signed by our foreign partners. Actually, those contracts were often signed under the guarantees of the Belarusian Government and under certain obligations on the part of investors: to provide work and technology, and to produce certain volumes of products. Unilateral withdrawal is a violation of such agreements,” the expert added.
According to Mr. Shpakovsky, it is by no means a mirror answer, since Belarus has not yet turned to it. “So much Belarusian property has been illegally stolen abroad! Meanwhile, the Lithuanian court refuses to study the claims of Belaruskali at all. This is ridiculous. Our company owns 30 percent of the Klaipeda terminal’s shares, but Belarus cannot send its cargo there. It’s nonsense! It’s contrary to the UN documents. A convention is in force, in which the issues of access to the sea are spelled out. However, the United Nations Secretariat is actually captured by Americans, and it acts in the interests of the latter.”
Official Vilnius also acts in the interests of the United States, and this refers to the issue of banning the Belarusian potassium transit through the territory of Lithuania and a raider seizure of Belarusian property. Mr. Shpakovsky drew a parallel with the demolition of Soviet monuments in this Baltic country, “Just imagine ‘the greatness’ of Lithuania and Vilnius Mayor (although we do not even know anything about him), when he can, for example, neglect the UN decision and demolish monuments. We understand perfectly well that this minor official of a small, run-down, depressed Eastern European state would have never dared to violate the international organisation’s decision on his own. Does this mean it is allowed? Americans say that the world is based on rules, but what kind of rules are they following? Firstly, they are not united. Secondly, they are interpreted arbitrarily. It's like Mussolini's fascism: for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
