The conference “The Luxembourg Solutions” was organised as a follow-up to the report “Addressing the specific challenges faced by the Belarusians in exile” adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in June 2023 and whose rapporteur was Paul Galles (Luxembourg, EPP/CD). Its objective was to discuss the role national parliaments and other national authorities can play in supporting the implementation of the recommendations formulated in the report.
This high-level event was organised in cooperation with the Chamber of Deputies of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, with the participation of Xavier Bettel, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Luxembourg, Fernand Etgen, Vice-President of the Chamber of Deputies of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, Theodoros Rousopoulos, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Leader of the Belarusian democratic forces. Other participants included members of PACE, national parliamentarians who are part of the international parliamentary Alliance for a Democratic Belarus, foreign affairs representatives and representatives from international organisations, including the Council of Europe, international NGO representatives, as well as representative members of the Belarusian democratic forces and of Belarusian civil society.
Six panels addressed the key challenges facing Belarusians in exile and the solutions proposed in Resolution 2499 (2023): legal entry and stay, threats to freedom of movement and the denial of consular services, access to education, pursuing a professional career and entrepreneurship in exile, and preserving and promoting Belarus cultural identity.
An important highlight of the conference was the artistic perspective provided by the award-winning writer Sasha Filipenko, and Natalia Kaliada, Co-founder and Artistic Director of the Belarus Free Theatre. For the writer Mr Filipenko, “the fight against dictatorship is a hard and long journey, but we must unite and do it together, so that one day Lukashenko will go on trial in The Hague, not on holiday in Budapest”. While the theatre director Ms Kaliada underlined that “through sharing our real stories from across the world, we can help people find hope again for themselves and maybe there will be a chance for all of us, including me, to have dreams again”.
The concrete actions on each of the themes elaborated during the discussion, based on Resolution 2499 (2023) for orienting and aiding the co-ordination of subsequent steps, are presented in this document.
