Cichanoŭskaja suggests establishing EU fund for Belarusian small businesses

September 20, BPN. A guarantee fund for Belarusian small businesses in the European Union could allow entrepreneurs with no credit history to obtain loans, Belarusian opposition leader Sviatłana Cichanoŭskaja said.

She told participants in Belarus Business Harbour 2022, a two-day business forum that opened on September 19 in Warsaw, that her economic team has already started working on the project with the European Commission, the government of Poland, the European Investment Bank, and the Polish Development Bank.

Cichanoŭskaja said that all Belarusian businesses now face restrictions in the EU because companies linked with the Alaksandr Łukašenka regime set up new legal entities to bypass Western sanctions.

She noted that the EU could also simplify procedures for obtaining visas and opening bank accounts for those Belarusian businessmen who do not support the regime and the war in Ukraine.

The politician stressed that private businesses had contributed to “our fight for a new democratic Belarus in 2020.” Later, many business owners had to relocate, while some remain behind bars.

The number of Belarusian individual entrepreneurs and new companies with Belarusian roots in the EU grew by about 2,000 between August 2020 and June 2022, with about 80 percent operating in Poland, according to Cichanoŭskaja’s economic advisor Aleś Alachnovič.