Czech foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg to visit Minsk
- 16.04.2009, 9:08
The foreign minister of the Czech Republic arrives in Minsk on Solidarity Day.
The Czech Republic holds presidency of the European Union this year. Karel Schwarzenberg is to discuss an issue of participation of Belarus in the Eastern Partnership program during his visit to Minsk, Radio Svaboda reminds.
Karel Schwarzenberg said earlier the EU foreign ministers had discussed a question of Belarus’s participation in the new program, which will be officially launched at Prague summit on May 7. However, its remains unknown whether Alyaksandr Lukashenka will be invited for the meeting.
The Czech foreign minister said in March Belarus would face serious difficulties with possible participation in the Eastern Partnership program and fall out of European context if it recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Earlier, speaking about prospects of EU–Belarus cooperation, Karel Schwarzenberg expressed an intention to establish closer relations with Belarus. As Schwarzenberg said, the EU should offer Belarus “a European alternative, but this requires that Belarus change its behaviour towards its own citizens”.
A number of EU high ranking officials have visited Belarus over the last months. In particular, Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary-General of both the Council of the European Union; Goran Lindblad, Chairperson of the PACE Political Affairs Committee; and Andrea Rigoni, PACE rapporteur on Belarus, paid visits to Belarus.
Gunnar Wiegand, Head of the European Commission's Unit for Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus and the Central Asian Republics, said last week during his visit to Minsk the full normalization of the relations between the EU and Belarus would be possible only if Belarus took “further steps in the five key areas identified by our foreign ministers”. They are electoral framework reform, freedom of assembly, possibilities for non-governmental organizations to work freely in the country, media freedom and restrictions of freedom for individuals.