Authorities have ignored conference on “Eastern Partnership”
- 23.11.2009, 18:17
The conference on prospects of interaction between Lithuania and Belarus in the framework of realization of Eastern Partnership initiative was held in Vilnius on the weekend. Official Minsk has ignored the conference.
Among the participants of the conference were the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Lithuanian Parliament Audronius Ažubalis, MEP Algirdas Saudargas, the head of the parliamentary group for relations with Belarus Justinas Karosas; the Belarusian side was represented by Alyaksandr Kazulin, Syarhei Matskevich, Alyaksandr Milinkevich, Alyaksei Yanukevich, Mikhail Marynich, Anatol Lyabedzka and others.
One of the key topics of the conference was representation of Belarus in the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Partnership, EuroNest. 120 delegates are to be members of this organ, 60 from the European Union countries, 50 from the parliaments of 5 member countries of the European Partnership except Belarus. 10 persons are to represent our country. The question about our representation is complicated by the fact that there is no internationally recognized parliament in Belarus, so it was planned that 10 representatives of opposition would join the EuroNest. However, recently in Brussels Alyaksandr Milinkevich lobbied another variant, according to which 5 representatives of the regime and 5 oppositionists would become the EuroNest members. However, even such a variant hasn’t suited the Belarusian authorities, and they refused to send their representatives to the conference.
“The Lithuanian side supports representation of Belarus in the EuroNest the format of 5 representatives of the opposition and 5 of the regime. But according to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Lithuanian Parliament Audronius Ažubalis, in the case when the Belarusian authorities would insist on excluding the opposition and ignore the events related to the parliamentary component, the decision adopted in November 2008 would be valid, under which all the 10 places in the EuroNest would belong to the opposition,” the leader of the United Civil Party Anatol Lyabedzka said.
“The fact that the regime’s representatives haven’t come to Vilnius, demonstrates that they are trying to dictate their terms to the European Union. At the same time, such a demarche is confirmation that there is no internal dialogue in Belarus, and representatives of the authorities defiantly ignore the events where oppositionists participate. I have said about that in my statement, and about hopelessness of attempts to reform Lukashenka. In order to characterize the policy of the EU towards Belarus, I told Arabian tale about Hodja Nasrudin who promised a sultan to teach his donkey to speak over 20 years. When he was asked why he got engaged in such a dangerous adventure, he answered that there is no danger in that, as in 20 years either the sultan or the donkey would die, so there would be no punishment for the result,” told the former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin to europeanbelarus.org.