Spokesman of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry A.Glaz answers the question of the Agency BelTA about the new EU restrictive measures against Belarus

All these multiple EU sanctions packages are united by the main thing - the complete hopelessness of achieving their destructive goals. The sooner the European bureaucrats realise this, the less damage they will cause to European businesses and people.

For us, these new restrictive measures are a passing phase. We have a lot of plans for our development, our economy is actively working and, frankly speaking, we have a lot of things and projects ahead of us.

We are preparing for Independence Day, this week we plan to become a full member of the SCO, make a number of serious foreign visits and launch significant cooperation programmes with those countries that want to develop mutually beneficial cooperation. And there is a majority of such countries in the world.

In this context, the attempts of the EU leadership to stop our development with their illegal sanctions look a bit comical. It is obvious that the decisions adopted in haste to be in time for the change of presidency will in fact strengthen us, intensify interaction with key partners, but cause discomfort to Europeans and ultimately weaken the EU itself.

It is unlikely that with such approaches, which are not shared by the global majority, the European Union will be able to hope for any significant role in the new world order.

Of course, the Government of Belarus has already prepared a set of asymmetric response measures. They will involve toughening the conditions for the import and activities of entities from unfriendly countries in Belarus. We emphasise once again that these steps on our part are not proactive, and all the blame for this lies with the initiators of the sanctions - the EU leadership.

Although we remain convinced that in order to remove the mutual claims, it is more effective not to swap restrictions but to engage in dialogue, for which Belarus is ready in any format and on any of the most sensitive issues.

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