Barroso: Normal relations only after exoneration of political prisoners

There will be no normalization of the relations between the EU and Belarus without the release and exoneration of political prisoners.

The president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso stated that as he visited Lithuania the other day. In an exclusive interview to the Lietuvos Rytas newspaper he congratulated Vilnius on the responsible mission – the start of the chairmanship in the Council of the European Union and told about Brussels’ policy towards community’s Eastern neighbors.

- What do you thinks are the chances of the Ukraine to become a EU member, if any, of course?

- The goals of reaching political association and economic integration link us with the Ukraine. The Eastern Partnership policy offers such a relations format to all the partners. However, the cooperation should be based on the respect to common values such as democracy, human rights and basic freedoms, and also the transparency of a state’s judiciary. We hope that by November the Ukraine achieves the compliance with the criteria, which have been established by the Council on Foreign Relations back in December. This compliance would ensure that the reform process was irreversible.

- What conditions does the EU put forward for Belarus in order to establish closer relations with this country?

- The development of the bilateral relations between the EU and Belarus depends on the democratization and modernization of the power institutes. The modernization must apply to the systems of human rights observance and justice. It is impossible to normalize the relations with the regime if all the political prisoners are not released and exonerated. The EU wants to help Belarus to follow its international commitments in this sphere.

We maintain relations with Belarusian power institutes at the level of ministers and officials as well as with the civil society, mainly in the framework of the European Dialogue on Modernization program.