Belarus’ Deputy Foreign Minister, Yelena Kupchina, suggested specifying of the Eastern Partnership initiative after five years of its realisation, taking into account contemporary challenges and the development of the situation in the region. She made this statement at the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Visegrad Group and Eastern Partnership member states.
Ms. Kupchina presented Belarus’ approach regarding the implementation and further development of the Eastern Partnership initiative. She underlined the utmost respect of the basic principles of equality, non-discrimination and mutual responsibility, fixed in the 2009 Prague Declaration, alongside the consideration of priorities, needs and interests of the partner-states on the basis of the principle of differentiation. Moreover, the Deputy Foreign Minister stressed the importance of giving the Eastern Partnership initiative an inclusive status, enhancing the level of transparency for the sake of securing sustainability and efficiency of the initiative.Ms. Kupchina held a number of bilateral meetings, including with the European Union Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Fule and the First Deputy Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Drulбk. The parties discussed the prospects of Belarus-EU co-operation, as well as a number of issues related to bilateral interaction.
While in Budapest, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus also met with the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations of Hungary, Pйter Szijjбrtу, who heads the Hungarian side of the Belarusian-Hungarian
Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Co-operation, the Hungarian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Zsolt Nйmeth and Hungarian businessmen. The officials discussed the development of bilateral political, trade-economic and investment co-operation.
