Press releases

MINSK, 25 June (BelTA) – Belarusian students will be able to study at the Eastern Partnership European School (the New School) in Tbilisi, Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn told the Belarus 1 TV channel, BelTA has learned.

“The New School that will open soon will receive applications from Belarusian students, too. If this pilot project is a success, and I am strongly convinced that it will be so, we will be able to launch similar projects in other countries and capital cities,” Johannes Hahn said.

He noted that investment in young talents is one of the ways to achieve 20 deliverables that were set at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Brussels in 2017. “These deliverables imply very specific actions, for example, interconnection and integration of highways in the region with those in the European Union. The same pertains to railways,” the European Commissioner noted.

According to him, one of the most important outcomes of the recent round of informal ministerial dialogues of the Eastern Partnership countries in Minsk on 21 June was a decision to chart a roadmap for the EaP member states. The first step is concluding a regional agreement on reducing roaming tariffs. The second step is a similar arrangement with the European Union. “It is quite a challenging task, because we need to reconcile the interests of customers and mobile network operators, while businesses do not want to lose their profits. However, if we want closer engagement, lower roaming rates are one of the ways to bring people together,” he noted.

“Therefore, I can announce many specific actions. Among them is giving SMEs access to local currency loans financed by the European Union. This lending is of paramount importance, as it will enable SMEs to get financial resources to expand their operations. If we analyze export from the Eastern Partnership countries to the European Union, we will see considerable progress,” the European Commissioner noted.