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Belarus is ready for dialogue with EU, will wait for results of EU Council’s next meeting, Presidential Administration head says

The Belarusian authorities are ready for the resumption of their dialogue with the European Union, but their further steps will depend on what decisions the European Union’s Council makes at its coming meeting later this month, Uladzimir Makey, head of the Presidential Administration, said on April 6.

Mr. Makey blamed the latest diplomatic row between Minsk and the 27-nation bloc on the latter and said that Belarus had produced only a “token” reaction to the EU sanctions. “And we are ready to wait for the next decision by the EU Council at a meeting that will take place in late April this year and where the Belarus issue will be discussed,” he said.

“We are ready to begin a normal, peaceful dialogue. And it seems to us that mutual understanding will be reached very quickly. And if the EU makes a decision in the spirit of dialogue, it will become an excellent background for the EU ambassadors’ return to Belarus,” Mr. Makey said.

The official promised that the Belarusian authorities would not “brandish the truncheon” and would seek a constructive dialogue with the EU.

Mr. Makey warned that the European Union’s sanctions against Belarus would only further discourage the country from adopting European values. “If you want Belarus to continue along the path of developing democracy in the European sense of this word, if you want Belarus’ civil society to further develop, be politically mature, literate, the political system to further improve, European values to be further introduced, you must use completely different methods,” the official stressed.

Mr. Makey said that the European Union’s sanctions were counterproductive and had negated all progress made during the country’s period of liberalization. “The sanctions introduced by the EU threw society back to where it was many years ago,” he said. //BelaPAN