Sergei Martynov Took Part in the Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Eastern Partnership Participating States

24/07/2012

On July, 2012 Belarusian delegation headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Martynov took part in the 3rd meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Eastern Partnership participating states in Brussels. Among the participants of the meeting were High Representative of the EU on Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle, heads of the Foreign Ministries of the EU member states and of the participating states.

The participants of the meeting discussed the EU authored road map for the Eastern Partnership, as well as the prospects for the EP initiative for the period before the next summit at the level of the heads of states and heads of governments, scheduled for the fall of 2013 in Vilnius.

The head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry spoke at the event. S.Martynov pointed at the need to closely adhere to the EP basic principles that rule out discriminatory approaches. In this regard the deficit of democracy within the Eastern Partnership itself should be eliminated. Belarusian diplomat underlined that human rights problems within the EU member states should be visible as well, especially on the background of the recent crisis events.

Belarus has also made specific proposals on substantive contents of the Eastern Partnership. The accent is made on energy and transportation as the spheres that are capable of providing a new impetus to the project activities of this regional initiative.

Within the ministerial event S.Martynov had a number of bilateral meetings with the top officials of the European External Action Service, European Commission, Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the EU member states.

print version