Deputy Speaker of Lithuanian Seimas: United Europe without Belarus is unfinished project

Petras Auštrevičius believes the dream about Europe is becoming more popular in Belarus.

“Our presidency in the EU is a big chance to make Belarus more visible. United Europe without Belarus is an unfinished project,” deputy speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas Petras Auštrevičius said during a consultation of Belarusian and Lithuanian democratic parties in the Lithuanian parliament, BelaPAN reports.

The EU's strategic interest is to “have European neighbours in the full sense of the word”, he stressed. “I want to believe that the dream about Europe is becoming more popular and stronger in Belarus,” Auštrevičius said.

The leaders of the opposition in the Seimas, former prime minister Andrius Kubilius, noted that it's a decision of every country choose its fate. “But people must have the right to choose. We don't see it now in Belarus,” the politician added.

Kubilius thinks the fate of Belarus depends not only on the united opposition in the country or changes of Lukashenka's regime, but on many geopolitical factors, including “the conduct of the Kremlin, the development of the Eastern Partnership and the EU's understanding of the responsibility for the fate of the region”.

“There are particular tasks that the Belarusian opposition should do, but there are tasks that we, the EU members, our neighbours, should solve,” Kubilius said. “We need to understand before taking over the EU presidency what we can do, also for Belarus, during 6 months.”

The politician noted that an association agreement between the EU and Ukraine, which is due to be signed at the EaP Summit in Vilnius this November, is a “radical success that creates a new geopolitical future for the whole region of the Eastern Partnership”.

“We must see certain problems in countries, including Belarus, keeping in view the prospects for the development of relations in the entire region,” Kubilius is confident.