Belarus stripped of European leadership over academic repression

Belarus will miss its turn to lead the European Higher Education Area after other member countries and international organisations condemned state repression of students and academics by its government.

Belarus had been due to co-chair the Eurasian standard-setting body, which meets as the Bologna Follow Up Group (BFUG), for six months from July 2022, but the decision on 2 December means that it cannot do so until at least 2024, when ministers next meet and assess progress on promised academic reforms in the country.

Over the 2020-21 academic year, Belarusian student associations and the non-governmental Belarusian Independent Bologna Committee (BIBC) recorded the detention of 492 students and administrative penalties against 177 academics for political activism.

“It would be highly ironic and would be quite detrimental to the credibility of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) if it had to be steered and represented by the Belarusian authorities”, said Martina Darmanin, president of the European Students’ Union (ESU), which proposed the measure. Belarus will still participate in the EHEA’s many working groups, such as on the recognition of degrees and quality assurance, but it will not be the face of the body.

Sasha Kuzmich, a democracy activist and volunteer for the Belarusian Students’ Association (BSA) and BIBC who is living in exile, welcomed the suspension but was sceptical about its impact. “It’s symbolic, not for Belarus – they were outsiders in this process from the very beginning, showing their lack of progress and disregard to the basic values. It’s symbolic for the BFUG and for those who are making advocacy, so for ESU, for BSA; and we really hope it will have some impact on universities which still have partnerships with Belarusian universities,” she said.

Ms Kuzmich said universities outside Belarus that wanted to help academia in the country should boycott those named in the BIBC’s “Black Book of Academy”, who, the group says, have aided in the state’s crackdown on critics and activists. “If they’re not ready to lose connection with the whole university, make it visible that there are people they don’t want to host any more,” she said.

Belarus’ authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko has called a constitutional referendum for February 2022, and Ms Kuzmich said many activists fear the vote will lead to even tighter controls on expression. “We were an example of autocracy, where you can do most whatever you want until you try to come to politics,” she said. “It was never a fear that you will be fired for a joke, for example, and now it is.”

Sjur Bergan, head of the education department of the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental body that lobbied for Belarus’ admission to the EHEA in 2015 to nurture its academic links with the West, said the benefits of keeping the country in the group still outweighed concerns.

“In the post-Lukashenko era, Belarus will need highly qualified academics who have international experience and international competence, and it’s important that those be towards Europe and not just towards Russia,” he said.

“We knew there would be issues with implementation, we knew that Belarus would not implement the fundamental values entirely, but the situation after the failed presidential election in 2020 has really worsened conditions a lot,” he said, adding that the suspension was unlikely to change things there in the short term.

ben.upton@timeshighereducation.com