Unprecedented and sincere openness

Yegor Yermalitsky

Belarus’ foreign policy has always been aimed at good neighbourliness and maintaining respectful relations with all countries of the world. People’s diplomacy, skilfully guided by the leadership of our country, has played a significant role in this. The famous Presidential Decree No. 8 dated January 9th, 2017 On the Establishment of a Visa-free Entry and Exit Procedure for Foreign Citizens became its pinnacle in the pre-COVID era. Based on the introduced document, we allowed citizens of 80 countries to enter Belarus through the Minsk National Airport’s border checkpoint visa-free and stay for a period of up to five days.

The pandemic followed by the hybrid aggression against Belarus from the West, contrary to the expectations of the instigators of the conflict, did not shake the Belarusians’ commitment to the principles of hospitality. Quite the opposite — this has led to completely unexpected consequences for them.

Under the conditions of ongoing pressure, Minsk chose not to build a new ‘iron curtain’ but to make one of the most elegant and powerful moves in our foreign policy in recent times. Starting from April 15th, 2022, the Presidential Decree established a visa-free entry procedure to Belarus for citizens of Lithuania, Latvia (including persons with the status of a non-citizen of Latvia), and from July 1st of the same year — for Polish citizens.

Vitaly Pivovarchik

Since then, the visa-free period has already been extended twice and has become a real knight’s move in a multidimensional chess game with the West. First, Belarus has firmly and clearly stated that it is not going to abandon the principle of good neighbourliness, which is one of the axioms of our foreign policy. Secondly, the Belarusian leadership has made it clear to Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians that our country does not put an equal sign between people and the ruling regimes established in their countries, and we want to maintain friendship between nations despite the unfriendly attacks of Warsaw, Vilnius and Riga. Thirdly, we have successfully eliminated one of the hostile propaganda’s preferred methods of attacking Belarus. From now on, residents of these three countries can freely cross the border after hearing negative narratives about our country and then see for themselves that their local media is blatantly spreading lies that have no foothold on reality.

Statistics also attest to the fact that the Belarusian visa-free regime is a necessary and conceptually important idea. 

Since the first day of 2024 year, 116,249 foreigners from the European Union have used it, including 50,552 citizens of Lithuania, 31,214 citizens and 9,369 non-citizens of Latvia, as well as 25,114 citizens of Poland.

Now, at the peak of the confrontation with the West and after the visa-free regime with the closest neighbours has proved to be effective and feasible, Belarus has expanded its effect to 35 countries at once. As the Foreign Ministry has stressed, this was done ‘in order to further demonstrate the openness and peacefulness of our country, commitment to the principles of good neighbourliness, as well as to simplify interpersonal contacts and improve freedom of movement’.

Thus, from 8 a.m. on July 19th, citizens of all European countries are able to visit the Blue-eyed country [Belarus’ nickname] with valid documents and stay in Belarus for no more than 30 days from the date of entry. So far, the visa-free regime has been established until December 31st of the current year. However, as practice has shown, Belarusian hospitality has no temporary borders.
The recent decision made by the Head of State undoubtedly has significant implications both economically, with an expected boost in tourism contributing to the budget, and in terms of challenging the portrayal of Belarus by Western media.
Now that our doors are open not only to Lithuanians, Poles and Latvians, but also to everyone else, they will be able to see firsthand that the gap between the distorted image of Belarus created by bellicose propaganda and real Belarus is truly huge. In fact, the more ordinary citizens visit our country, the better. Once they get to know Belarusians better, fall in love with our sights, appreciate our culture, they will be able to form their own opinions and evaluate the unfriendly actions of their authorities against Minsk more critically. Ultimately, they may prevent their distraught politicians from committing a fatal provocation.

By Anton Popov