The economic crisis did not destabilize the foundations of the social contract between state and society and did not provoke the growth of the protest sentiment in Belarus. At the same time, there is a trend of increasing demand for the alternatives of development among certain social groups. These are the main conclusions of the study "Social impact of the global financial crisis", conducted by the Novak research laboratory, BISS and the IPM Research Center. A study was presented to the public June 16, 2010 in Minsk.

The Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies has published the Belarusian Yearbook-2009. The Belarusian Yearbook, a tradition since 2003, is a joint action by the community of experts and analysts of Belarus to compose, conceptualize and present the chronicle of the newest country's history. It is a unique publication to suggest a complex and analytical review of events and trends in different spheres of public life.

On May 7, 2010, it was a year since the European Union formally launched its Eastern Partnership program. In this year, the EaP has been almost completely shaped institutionally, with the vademecum on financing determined and first projects beginning to be implemented. Belarus, however, is far from full-scale participation in the EaP, as it has neither made much progress in political dialog nor met the EU standards considering democratization within the country.

The Belarusian society is pragmatic in its geopolitical choice; thereby, any policy based exclusively on public preferences will be unstable and subject to momentary fluctuations. This is the main conclusion of the study “Belarus and the World: Geopolitical Choice and Security in the Context of the Economy and Culture” undertaken by the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS) and Axiometrics Laboratory NOVAK.

Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies presents the second issue of the BISS Trends - quarterly monitoring of the Belarus’s political, social and economic development.

Alexei Pikulik, Maxim Znak, Alexei Lashuk, Elena Rakova, Marina Roshchina

Belarus has chances to get into the thirty countries with the best business climate according to the methodology of the World Bank «Doing Business Report» already by 2012. The progress may be achieved without changing the foundations of economic policy course carried out by the government. This is the main conclusion of the analytical report distributed by the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies (BISS).

Authors of the report evaluated changes in the legislation that entered into force at the time of the survey, and proposed a range of measures to enable the Government to perform a task of radically improving the World Bank ratings, formulated by President Alexander Lukashenka in 2008.