English

Lukashenka calls for resetting Belarus-EU relationship

 

Belarus hopes for a reset of the relationship between Belarus and the European Union on the principles of equal rights and mutual respect, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said Tuesday after accepting the credentials of the new head of the EU Delegation to Belarus, Maira Mora.

According to the government’s news agency BelTA, the Belarusian leader expressed hope that Ms. Mora’s great experience as a diplomat of “neighboring Latvia, which is not alien to us,” would help her play an active role in the development of the EU-Belarus relations and contribute to the resetting of them.

The EU is “one of the key partners [of Belarus] in the trade, economic, financial and investment spheres and an important source of advanced technologies,” Mr. Lukashenka stressed.

According to him, Belarus and the EU cooperate to ensure the reliable protection of the European region from major modern challenges and threats, and jointly combat transnational crime, illegal migration, human trafficking, and illegal trade in arms and drugs.

Mr. Lukashenka noted that Ms. Mora had good knowledge of the situation in Belarus, as she had earlier served as Latvia’s ambassador to Minsk. “I hope you understand us and this is very good,” he said. “You should not believe what they are writing here, that we’ll bargain with someone and trade in so-called political prisoners. If we can do anything to alleviate their fate, including things in the interests of the European Union, we’ll do this and do this sincerely.”

“We are not in a situation where we would have to run somewhere and fall on our knees,” Mr. Lukashenka said. “The first days that have passed since we launched a drastic normalization of the foreign currency situation show that we did not have that crisis. Now we have to arrange for the rate of our currency not to quickly rise back to the level where it was, which it tends to do. We’ll manage to get out of this situation without assistance from anyone.”

“We’ll have something to talk about and we have what to work on,” Ms. Mora said, according to BelTA.

Catherine Ashton, the EU`s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, announced the appointment of Ms. Mora as head of the EU Delegation to Belarus on July 17.

Ms. Mora’s diplomatic career has included service as Latvia’s ambassador to Belarus between late 2004 and 2010 and at the Latvian delegation to the OSCE in Vienna. She speaks several languages, including Belarusian.

The EU Delegation to Belarus had been headed by Charge d`Affaires Jean-Eric Holzapfel since its establishment in March 2008 under an agreement between the Commission of the European Communities and Belarus. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty on December 1, 2009, the Delegation is now officially called the Delegation of the European Union to Belarus (EU Delegation to Belarus).
The Delegation has the status of a diplomatic mission and officially represents the European Union in the country. // BelaPAN