Ulad Vialichka: The Eastern Partnership Roadmap is very important for Belarus

It is expected that on July 23 at the ministerial meeting in Luxembourg, the Roadmap will be adopted before the Eastern Partnership Summit planned for in 2013 in Vilnius. The document is very relevant, for our country, as well, announced the chairman...

It is expected that on July 23 at the ministerial meeting in Luxembourg, the Roadmap will be adopted before the Eastern Partnership Summit planned for in 2013 in Vilnius. The document is very relevant, for our country, as well, announced the chairman of the International Consortium "EuroBelarus" Ulad Vialichka.

The European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule hopes that the meeting will confirm that the Roadmap is the basis for the continuation of the Eastern Partnership activity. According to Stefan Fule, the document should promote political association and economic integration of the EU with the Eastern Partnership countries through joint efforts; it aims to enhance cooperation in a wide range of sectors.

In his turn, Ulad Vialichka noted: "It's a kind of a policy paper that will describe the ways, strategies and directions of development of the Eastern Partnership countries and for the EU. I think there will be nothing particularly new, but there will be concretization of plans, intentions, certain criteria by which to judge of the dynamics and development of the processes".

U.Vialichka believes that it is too early talking about the details of the document, but it will certainly take into account the specific features of Belarus: "As far as our country now holds a special place in the Eastern Partnership, then, based on our minimum participation, this feature will be reflected in the Roadmap. That is, the document will not any way describe and regulate the relations of Belarus and the EU within the Eastern Partnership initiative, but rather will concern all the participants of the program, which is still very useful for our country. Indeed, such a coordinate system (and a road map is setting a specific coordinate system, more precisely, GPS-navigation system for the Eastern Partnership), of course, in a certain sense simplifies the understanding of what the EU is, describes what may occur or not occur within it, adds details".

Thus, for Belarus the very presence of the Roadmap will be relevant, although there can be said nothing concrete regarding our country.

"This document will cover the entire region. Most likely, it will contain some references to the specificity of the Belarusian situation, but any deep considerations, regarding Belarus, are unlikely to be proposed there. That is, this is not the document from which we can expect such kind of strategic decisions. It's a common coordinate system, a specific step forward in the overall strategic work of the Eastern Partnership, but we should not wait a lot regarding Belarus in this document", summed up the head of "EuroBelarus".