Brussels Expects Specific Steps from Minsk :: Charter'97 :: News

During a one-day visit to Brussels a deputy Foreign Minister Valer Varanetski met Benita Ferrero-Waldner, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy. The planned talks with the leadership of the European Union Council haven’t taken place on technical grounds.

As Radio Svaboda was told by the press-secretary of Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Christine Hohmann, during the meeting trade preferences hadn’t been discussed. The issue of preferences’ withdrawal or keeping is beyond the scope of the European Commission, and is decided through taking corresponding regulations by the European Union.

During the talks today Mrs. Benita Ferrero-Waldner said to the Belarusian side that Brussels is interested in improving the dialogue with the official Minsk, however the EU expects more than words from the Belarusian leadership.

“During the conversation the European Commissioner emphatically underlined that that concrete and tangible steps in the sphere of democratization, human rights observation, including release of political prisoners, are expected from Minsk.

One of the main topics of our talks was an issue of opening a representation of the EU in Minsk. All these steps expected by us are a precondition for including Belarus to the European Neighbourhood Policy. Mr. Varanetski has taken that into consideration,” Christine Hohmann, said.

According to official Belarusian reports, before that the leader of the foreign Belarusian ministry Syarhei Martynau sent a letter to Brussels. He offered to start a process of negotiations on mutual trips of citizens of Belarus and the EU, and to handle the issue of visas.

As this letter indicates, the Belarusian side has simplified new visa formalities considerably, to make visits of Europeans to Belarus simpler. On the other hand, from the beginning of the year the EU increased the cost of Schengen visa for Belarusians to 60 Euro.

Belarusian citizens are also complaining that they are denied visas recently, the head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry wrote in the letter.

As Christine Hohmann told to Radio Svaboda, the visa issue was on the agenda of the negotiations as well.

“The issue of mutual trips and visa rules and regulations is a part of our cooperation, as we hope for that, for participation of Belarus in European Neighbourhood Policy. In case the Belarusian side would give us real signals which would demonstrate progress in the sphere of democratization, we would discuss these issues in detail.

The issue of streamlining visa procedures is one of the components of this policy. But first Minsk should demonstrate specific steps in this direction and release political prisoners”.