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Priorities of Belarus’ participation in Eastern Partnership Initiative outlined

Roman Golovchenko

MINSK, 18 June (BelTA) – The European Union’s Eastern Partnership Initiative should be geared towards mutually beneficial regional economic integration with tangible results for ordinary citizens. Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko made the statement after a summit of heads of state and heads of government of the countries participating in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership Initiative, BelTA has learned.

In his words, participants of the summit primarily focused on overcoming consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. Roman Golovchenko thanked the European Union for supporting Belarus’ efforts in the fight against the virus.

Roman Golovchenko said: “We share key approaches of the European Union towards principles of the Eastern Partnership Initiative. We believe these principles should be based on differentiation and joint management. We presume that countries participating in the Eastern Partnership Initiative should be free to determine the projects of interest to them on their own instead of accepting advice that may be forced upon them.”

The Belarusian head of government noted that an individual approach to cooperation should not result in the so-called multispeed Eastern Partnership. “It is necessary to keep the initiative geared towards mutually beneficial regional economic integration with tangible results for ordinary citizens,” he stressed.

According to the Belarusian side, priority avenues include cooperation in the development of infrastructure, the expansion of the trans-European transport network, the removal of bottlenecks at the border with the European Union, and diversification of routes for delivering energy resources. “In our opinion, it is important to promote the use of renewable energy and the technologies that envisage a low level of atmospheric emissions such as, for instance, electric transport. In this context the commissioning of the Belarusian nuclear power plant in the near future will allow increasing the use of clean electric energy and will give a powerful impulse to the transition to a low-carbon economy, which in turn will result in the accomplishment of goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement,” the prime minister added.

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