For now EEU founding Treaty is useless, though important

According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Uladzimir Makei, signing the treaty will spur integration processes.

“We don’t feel any euphoria regarding this issue, as the form of the treaty signed by all parties doesn’t correspond to an earlier declared form”, - he said.

According to Makei, “it was planned that the treaty won’t contain any exceptions and restrictions in a number of sensitive spheres, such as oil, gas, medication, transportation, services, and a number of other important spheres, in which exceptions and restrictions still remain. Belarus was ready to undertake respective steps towards our partners”. However, partners turned out to be unprepared for that.

At the same time, nobody can guarantee that there will be no failures in the future, Makei noted. “However, we have clear judicial agreements which make it possible for us to stay calm in relation to our cooperation in all sensitive spheres”, - he claimed.

As “EuroBelarus” Information Service has earlier reported, the EEU founding Treaty between Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia was signed on May 29 in Astana.

As to the EU-Belarus visa negotiations, Uladzimir Makei marked that even though Belarus demonstrated its readiness to start negotiations on visa issues, the facts and arguments are not in favor of the European Union’s position. “The main thing is the fact that both Belarus and the EU are ready to conduct negotiations on the visa regime facilitation and readmission,” Belarusan Foreign Minister emphasized.

 He drew attention to the fact that the visa regime simplification with a number of states was one of Belarus’ foreign policy priorities. The visa-free regime with Turkey was introduced on April 1, and a similar agreement was signed with Brazil in November 2013. Negotiations on the visa regime facilitation with Israel are coming to an end too. Belarus is also conducting negotiations about it with some other countries, Makei noted.

Let us recall that official Minsk declared about its intentions to start EU-Belarus visa negotiations as far back as November 28-29, 2013 during Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius.