Volfovich on need for document to further develop National Security Concept
In line with paragraph 70 of the National Security Concept, the State Secretariat of Belarus’ Security Council has developed a draft presidential decree on the implementation of the National Security Concept of the Republic of Belarus – as reported by State Secretary of the Security Council Aleksandr Volfovich to President Aleksandr Lukashenko at a meeting of the Security Council
Mr. Volfovich recalled that after the approval of the National Security Concept during the Belarusian People’s Congress, this is the next important stage in improving legislation in this area, “The purpose of this document is to clarify – taking into account new changes – the procedure for assessing the state of national security based on a system of indicators developed for each of the nine areas of national security.”
Since 2010, this work has been built in accordance with a closed presidential decree, which has been amended and supplemented three times during this time. According to the State Secretary of the Security Council, the approaches enshrined in the document have proven their effectiveness in practice.
“Life does not stand still. Drastic changes in the military-political situation, the improvement of legislation, the emergence of new assessment methods required adjustments and adaptation of the document to meet modern realities,” he added.
According to Mr. Volfovich, the work on the draft decree was organised as in case with the National Security Concept.
“We’ve preserved in the document all the best that has proven itself positively in practice and what has not yet worked itself out today. At the same time, new proposals have been taken into account. We proceeded from the real situation on the basis of proposals from authorised state bodies, the developments of the scientific and expert community and the study of foreign experience.”
When developing the document, the potential gained by the interdepartmental commissions under the Security Council was fully realised, primarily in the field of economic and information security, as well as protection of state secrets. According to Mr. Volfovich, despite a number of additions, the overall structure of the document and the general algorithm of work remained unchanged.
“As before, a responsible co-ordinating body and executing bodies are assigned to each area, which analyse and propose an appropriate assessment in line with the established indicators and their threshold values,” he explained.
The state of national security in each area, as before, is assessed according to three criteria: ‘stable’, ‘unstable’ and ‘requiring urgent measures’, which corresponds to the following concepts enshrined in the National Security Concept: ‘risk’, ‘challenge’ and ‘threat to national security’.
The general assessment of the state of national security based on a comprehensive analysis of the received materials is carried out by the State Secretariat of Belarus’ Security Council, which prepares an annual report on the state of national security and measures to strengthen it and submits it to the President.
