What do Belarusians think about the West?

The more connections Belarusians have with Western countries, the more often they hold pro-democratic views. Such conclusions were reached by the British Chatham House following the results of a sociological study on the attitude of Belarusians to the "collective West". For more details on the methodology of the survey, see the end of the material.

Euroradio reports on the main conclusions of the study.

Few people go to Europe, although they would like to

Only a little more than a fifth of Belarusians have visited Europe in the last five years. 78% of Belarusians have never visited EU countries.

The most common reason for travel (71%) was tourism, the second (37%) - visiting relatives or friends, and the third (20%) - shopping.

The majority of Belarusians would like to go to Europe, for example, 65% said they would like to go on a tourist trip, and 50% - on an educational trip. 8% of Belarusians would "very much" like to move to the EU permanently, 12% would "rather" like to do so.

Only 7% of Belarusians have a valid visa. Interestingly, 22% of Belarusians would like to get a visa, but don't think it's possible.

Western culture - is it good?

One of the issues that the sociologists wanted to study was the attitude of Belarusians to Western culture. It turned out that, on average, Belarusians do not consider themselves part of it. But they do not view Western trends as negatively as Russians, for example.

Chatham House believes that Belarusians' distance from Western culture is partly explained by their low level of foreign language proficiency.

For example, 6% of Belarusians said they were fluent in Ukrainian, while 24% said they could "communicate on simple topics". The situation with English is much worse: 4% of respondents speak it confidently, while the ability to communicate on basic topics was chosen by 12%.

The situation with Polish, German, French and Italian is even worse.

However, Belarusians are still interested in major European events. For example, about 60% follow the European Football Championship in one way or another, while about 51% know about the Eurovision Song Contest. In both cases, the closer the connection with the West and its culture in general, the greater the interest in these events.

And how are the neighbors perceived?

Another interesting point of the study is the perception of Western countries and their level of development. Probably, propaganda has done its work here, because on average Belarus is considered more developed than Poland, including in education and agriculture.

"The evaluation of Poland's development is directly related to personal experience: those who have been to Eastern European countries are much less likely to believe that Belarus has developed more successfully than Poland," the researchers write.

Only 33% said they would like to have the same standard of living as in the EU, while 42% believe that life in Belarus is better than in European countries.

As many as 50% would like to get closer to the West and expand ties (14% - in favor of reducing ties, the rest found it difficult to answer).

Belarusians against sanctions (?)

The trend observed in several polls: Belarusians oppose European sanctions. And they are not unanimous in their opinion as to why they are being imposed.

For example, the actions of Lukashenko and his regime are mentioned by 28% as a reason for sanctions. 38% are sure that it's just a pretext and that European countries are "pursuing their own interests".

30% strongly agree with the thesis that "sanctions are unfair to ordinary citizens of Belarus", while 32% somewhat agree.

For comparison: 7% strongly agree with the thesis "Sanctions are imposed because of human rights violations in Belarus", while 16% rather agree - 16%. But 20% strongly disagree and another 15% rather disagree.

In general, Belarusians believe that the EU has become more closed than before. They asked about the time it takes to cross the border and get a visa, but not only that.

The false statement that Poland has closed all border crossings was considered true by 10% of respondents, while another 27% considered it rather true. The number of those who considered the thesis untrue is smaller.

With whom should Belarus make friends?

35% of the respondents had a hard time answering the question to whom it is more profitable for Belarus to get closer - to Russia or to the West.
The group of supporters of rapprochement with Russia is still large: 34%. The number of supporters of rapprochement with the EU is much smaller - 13%.

More than half of Belarusians do not believe in the possibility of Belarus joining the European Union in the next 15 years.

"In general, the stronger the personal ties of Belarusians with the EU countries, the more often they hold pro-democratic views," the authors of the study note. 

What kind of study is this?

As part of the study, Chatham House interviewed 827 respondents between June 28 and July 3, 2024. The sample is representative of the urban population.

The survey was conducted through internet interviews, as face-to-face interviews are currently not possible in Belarus. And although 92% of the country's population uses the Internet, it imposes certain limitations on the research.

"Despite the fact that the sample was weighted to accurately reflect the structure of Belarusian society, there is a possibility that support for Lukashenko's policies is slightly higher than reflected in the survey, since Lukashenko's supporters are often less socially and economically active than his opponents. On the contrary, the influence of the fear factor in the survey may underestimate the share of responses critical of the current government," the study says.

The size of the statistical error, according to Chatham House, does not exceed 3.4%.