Milinkevich: “Authorities made steps on liberalization and economic reforms”

• 21.11.2009, 15:50

The leader of the “For Freedom” movement made this statement to the European Parliament in Brussels.

As the website Milinkevich.org reports, Alyaksandr Milinkevich said in his speech to the European People’s Party about the necessity to continue the dialogue with Belarus because “it has no positive alternative”. He noted that the authorities had made certain steps on liberalization and economic reforms. According to the politician, the European Union should further engage Belarus in its zone of influence, but the cooperation should be based only on moral conditions.

It is also reported that Alyaksandr Milinkevich and such Belarusian politicians as Alyaksei Yanukevich, Paval Sevyarynets, Yury Hubarevich, Andrei Klimau, and Ales Lahvinets had negotiations in Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. MEP led by Libor Roucek, EP vice president, and the Belarusian delegation discussed composition of Belarus’s representation in Euronest.

It was planned before that only ten people, all oppositionists, would represent Belarus, because the Belarusian “parliament” is illegitimate. However, a compromise variant is not excluded. The politicians, who visited Brussels, are not against this.

“We are ready to consider compromise variants. But we think Belarus shouldn’t be represented only by members of the “parliament”, because it is not recognized by international community. It should be a mixed delegation. It’s very important to start an effective discussion in Belarus,” Milinkevich thinks.

The parliamentary assembly of the Eastern Partnership project consists of 60 members of the European Parliament and 10 representatives of the parliaments of the EaP members.