MINSK, 17 October (BelTA) – During its presidency in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2020, Belarus will be working to develop a full-format economic union, head of the Eurasian integration department at the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Aleksandr Aleksandrovich said at the international conference “Institute of Elections as the Mechanism of Public Authority Legitimation” in Minsk on 17 October, BelTA has learned.
According to Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, there are quite a few unsettled issues within the union. “The economic union does not operate in full. We still need to do a lot. We have tentatively agreed to get it fully operational by 2025,” Aleksandr Aleksandrovich said. He stressed that this is a relatively short period of time taking into account the need to address many sensitive matters.
On 1 January 2020 Belarus will take over the presidency in the Eurasian Economic Union. On 1 February 2020 a Belarusian representative will take charge of the Eurasian Economic Commission. “We will use these positions to give a new impetus to the integration processes and to the development of unified policies by the participating countries, so that we could take the EAEU further together,” said Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.
He also spoke on the importance of aligning the EAEU with the Belt and Road Initiative. The representative of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the need for dialogue between the EAEU and the European Commission. “We need to start dialogues on the issues that are of interest to business. There are certain signals that we will approach this dialogue during Belarus' presidency in the EAEU, taking into account thawing of relations between Belarus and the EU,” Aleksandr Aleksandrovich believes.
He stressed that the EAEU is not a one-day organization, but a neighbor of Europe. “To prosper, we should move toward the integration of integrations, as Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko suggested. The Eurasian continent is our home, and we need to live peacefully,” he said.
The conference has been organized by the Foreign Policy and Security Research Center, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Ukraine and Belarus. Representative of the foundation Margarita Litvin stressed that the annual conference plays an important role in discussing Eurasian integration, including challenges that the EAEU is facing. “Discussions give rise to new ideas and solutions,” she said.
According to moderator of the conference, head of the diplomatic and consular service division of the International Relations Department at Belarusian State University Andrei Rusakovich, over the past five years the EAEU member states have gone a long way towards the development of the association as an international organization of regional integration, a customs union and a common economic space. “Within the next five years the EAEU will have to address the most important tasks for the development of an economic union, which will define the role of this association in the regional and international system. The EAEU is part of the regional integration system in the post Soviet space,” Andrei Rusakovich said. This regional system is being severely tested in the context of security and economic development, he added.
Taking part in the international conference are experts, representatives of government bodies, international organizations, and the diplomatic corps.
