Opinions & Interviews

“I am convinced in the need for a dialogue between the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union, and it should promote rapprochement, not the establishment of dividing lines,” Vladimir Makei said.

He noted: “We understand perfectly well this EU's arm’s-length attitude toward our integration association. Many see it as an attempt to restore the Soviet Union. However, the EEU membership is beneficial for Belarus from the economic point of view, and we will be part of it.”

The Foreign Minister also stressed that the EEU is a relatively young integration formation which has not yet formed a common market without exemptions and restrictions. “The East and the West should search for common things, a joint basis to build relations and economically beneficial cooperation between the countries,” he said.

“Sooner or later the EU and the EEU will need to establish a dialogue, and we should gradually go this way,” the Belarusian Foreign Minister said.

In turn, Edgars Rinkevics noted that the EU has already been discussing promising cooperation between the two integration structures.

The Latvian Foreign Minister believes as important to outline the level of the EU-EEU talks and the format of these negotiations. The parties also should set clearly the goals they want to achieve. “These issues should be discussed by 28 countries that make up the European Union. It will take some time before the EU elaborates a position on the issue,” he said. At the same time, according to him, at present there is one factor which cannot be overlooked. It is the need for a prompt settlement of the situation in Ukraine. “It affects the possibility to start the dialogue,” Edgars Rinkevics said.

In his words, once a model for the EU-EEU relations is worked out, the European Union is not going to lose the progress made in the relations with the countries which make part of the EU’s initiative Eastern Partnership, i.e. Belarus and Armenia. The Eastern Partnership does not contradict the freedom of choice of the economic integration model those countries took up, the minister stressed.