Lukashenka wants good-neighbourly Belarus-EU relations without preconditions

Belarusian President’s press service
Belarusian President’s press service

Belarus is interested in mutually respectful and good-neighborly relations with the European Union, Alyaksandr Lukashenka said at the meeting with Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde and the Foreign Minister of Finland Pekka Haavisto on 25 November in Minsk.   
 

"Belarus is interested in building up mutually respectful and good-neighborly relations with the EU as well as with Sweden and Finland. I have been saying it for many years,” the Belarusian President’s press service quotes the Belarus leader as saying.

Sweden and Finland are an example of good management and are similar to our country, Lukashenka said. 

Belarus is interested in the European Union’s advanced experience in many spheres but it is necessary to finish the forming of the treaty and legal basis and sign the prepared agreements, the Belarusian President added. He also set his terms: “Preconditions are undesirable. We need to keep going in this direction. /…/ Yet, if we have already prepared the corresponding agreements and have come to accept that they need to be signed, we should not delay the process.”

Small and medium-sized nations need to unite in order ‘to survive in this stormy world,’ Lukashenka reckons.