10 days and 6 minutes before European March
- 4.10.2007, 13:54
The European March is to be held 14 October in Minsk. The action is to begin at 14.00 on October Square. At the time this material is being written - 13.54 - 10 days and 6 minutes are left before the European March.
The idea of the march appeared in the Belarusian civil society in response to the European Union’s address to the government and people of Belarus “What the European Union could bring to Belarus”. In our country the document is known as 12 proposals of the European Union.
The goal of the European March is to demonstrate the European choice of the Belarusian people and call for the authorities to accept the proposals of the European Union.
The government of Belarus has not yet responded in substance to the EU proposals. Though the results of the latest sociological polls conducted both by independent and state-governed sociological services prove that the majority of Belarusians positively react to the idea of improvement of relations with Europe and support the European vector of the country’s development.
Last spring the opposition offered to the authorities to start an internal Belarusian dialogue in order to put an end to the confrontation within the society, achieve consensus, and determine the way of development. The authorities gave no answer. Now the opposition offers to the authorities to make a practical step -- to support the European March and to take part in it. The organizing committee of the European March set up a special group for holding talks with the authorities. It includes respected political and public figures – former deputy foreign minister of Belarus Andrei Sannikov, former minister for external economic relations Mikhail Marinich, former head of the national bank of Belarus professor Stanislau Bahdankevich, deputy chairman of the BNF (Belarusian Popular Front) Party, Professor Yury Khadyka.
The EU has welcomed the organizing the European March in Minsk. "I welcome the initiative taken by Belarusian civil society to organise a European March in Minsk on 14 October in order to express the support of the Belarusian people for closer relations between Belarus and the EU. It is good to see that Belarusian civil society has taken up the EU's offer to Belarus to enter a full partnership, provided that Belarus would take convincing steps towards democratization”, - Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, Benita Ferrero-Waldner declared.
The European March organizing committee informs that a special site www.europeanmarch.org was created before the European March. The site contains information about the forthcoming action in Belarusian, Russian and English and the video clips on the topic of the European March.