Former foreign minister of Ukraine: EU shouldn’t follow Minsk rules

Representatives of official Kyiv think a decision of Belarus’s representation in Euronest should be taken in accordance with the EU rules.

Boris Tarasyuk, a former foreign minister and acting head of the Verkhovna Rada Commission on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, told PAP, a Polish news agency.

As Radio Svaboda reports, in an interview to PAP Tarasyuk spoke about Belarus’s representation in Euronest, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership. According to him, the EU shouldn’t follow Minsk rules. Official Minsk wants Belarus to be represented in Euronest only by members of the “national assembly”.

The first meeting of Euronest scheduled for today has been postponed due to a failure to reach an agreement between the European Parliament and Minsk on a Belarusian delegation in the Eastern Partnership Parliamentary Assembly.

Besides, heads of parliaments of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine sent a letter to EP President Jerzy Buzek demanding that the Belarusian delegation should consist of ten MPs, not opposition figures.

Borys Tarasyuk thinks this issue can split the Eastern Partnership programme participants.

“I am convinced that Belarus has to follow the EU rules, not vice versa. We, the Ukrainians, think the Belarusian delegation should consist of five MPs and five opposition representatives,” Ukrainian oppositional MP Borys Tarasyuk told in an interview to PAP.

We remind that Jacek Protasiewicz, a Polish MP, head of the EP delegation for relations with Belarus, said earlier that the Belarusian delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly would include only representatives of opposition and civil society.