Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus V.Makei participates in the Eastern Partnership Ministerial Meeting

19-06-2017

On June 19, 2017 upon the invitation of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, Federica Mogherini, and the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Johannes Hahn, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, took part in the 8th Annual Eastern Partnership (EaP) Ministerial Meeting in Luxembourg.

©Maja Kocijančič

In his plenary statement at the Ministerial, V.Makei outlined concrete facts that prove the effectiveness of the policy of interaction between Belarus and the EU. Belarusian Foreign Minister called Brussels and the European capitals to continue dialogue and cooperation with Minsk in bilateral and multilateral formats. The Belarusian Minister deplored the facts of transferring problems in bilateral relations with certain EU Member States to the multilateral platforms. In this context, V.Makei mentioned the issue of the Belarusian NPP construction and rejection of Belarus’ applications to join certain conventions of the Council of Europe. The Minister emphasized that using the principle of solidarity in the EU to put pressure on third countries is counterproductive.

V.Makei drew the attention of the participants of the event to the Belarusian idea to launch a new global peacekeeping process aimed at reaching an agreement on mutually acceptable conditions of coexistence with proper respect to the interests of small and medium size countries. The Minister stressed the importance of restoring trust between the states and preventing the emergence of new dividing lines. V.Makei spoke in favour of development of interaction between the Eurasian and European integration platforms.

The Head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry stressed the expediency of preserving and developing the Eastern Partnership as an initiative aimed at reaching concrete practical results. In this connection, the Minister voiced a number of proposals of the Belarusian side for consideration during the preparations to the EaP Summit to take place in Brussels on  November 24, 2017.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus also took part in a separate meeting of heads of delegations of the EaP countries with F.Mogherini and J.Hahn. The discussion at the event was focused on military and political situation in the region, counteracting global threats, including terrorism, cyber-crime and climate change.

V.Makei also had a number of working meetings with the top officials of the EU structures and Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the EU Member States and EaP countries.

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