Foreign Policy Priorities and Trends

The Belarusian foreign policy is aimed to secure a favorable external environment for the national development to ensure step-by-step welfare growth of Belarusians.

The neighbor countries are priority number one for the foreign policy of Belarus. First of all, it is Russia that is not only a major trade partner, market for Belarusian goods, source of raw materials and energy, but also a promoter of vast international support for Belarus. To continue cooperation with the Russian Federation is of strategic importance. While building the bilateral relations on Belarus and Russia preserve their sovereignty and remain full-fledged subjects of international law.

The Commonwealth of Independent States is another foreign policy priority of Belarus. Our country has always consistently supported the restoration of the ties broken after the collapse of the USSR for the sake of successful and stable development of our states and peoples. At the same time the operation of the existing mechanism of cooperation among CIS participating countries, which is far from being perfect, has been further complicated after a number of "coloured revolutions" swept across the post-Soviet area. The states that passed through such upheavals experienced a retreat from the CIS integration plans which hampered the restoration of full-scale economic cooperation, and had negative impact on other spheres of vital importance to the CIS community. Thereby Belarus is forced to seek new ways of cooperating within the CIS, show more flexibility and tolerance coupled with consistency and insistency. Against sheer complexities of the tasks and ambiguities or even occasionally contradicting stances of the CIS member states, Belarus considers the integration on the post-Soviet territory as a strategic foreign policy priority. A robustly growing commodity turnover with almost all CIS states over the past years has allowed Belarus to implement consistently its interests in the CIS area.

Belarus prioritizes the development of integration structures on the post-Soviet territory, mainly the (EurAsEC) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) — the most dynamically developing organizations with great prospects.

Belarus' active engagement with EurAsEC provides for an advanced level of cross-branch cooperation. Today, apart from purely economic cooperation in the EurAsEC framework which is central to the organization, more needs to be done in social, health care, sports, and in shaping a common foreign policy.

CSTO makes a significant contribution to maintaining collective security in the region. The CSTO current agenda includes fighting terrorism, preventing illegal development and proliferation of arms, including weapons of mass destruction, combating dryg trafficking and illicit migration. Belarus considers CSTO as an organization capable of protecting the national interests of its member states.

As an integral part of the European continent and a promoter of peace and development, Belarus gradually embodies the idea of good-neighborliness. Successful development of good-neighbor relations on a two-way basis, particularly in trade and economy, provides Belarus with additional arguments in the uneasy dialogue with the EU. Most efficient for Belarus is economic cooperation with Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, France, Belgium. Cross-border cooperation, fighting crime, strategic transit, regional contacts, environmental and cultural cooperation come out as important issues for both parties and are additional incentive for building constructive relations between Belarus and the EU.

Versatile cooperation with the US meets Belarus' interests just as well. The two countries are yet to go a long way before the potential of bilateral cooperation is fulfilled to full capacity, which is why Belarus urges the US and the EU to develop bilateral dialogue on an equal footing.

Asia and Africa are areas of high priority in Belarusian foreign policy. Central to the co-operation between Belarus and countries of the region are sameness of the national positions on the international agenda, specific agreements, and clearly good attitudes towards Belarus. Robust political contacts, solid predictions of economic growth, and credible partnerships with China, India and countries of South-East Asia allow to enhance bilateral co-operation in trade and economy and succeed in the delivery on the foreign policy commitments of Belarus.

The People’s Republic of China is a special priority of Belarus. The two countries are forging a strategic partnership and hence strengthening their intention to exercise long-term national interests in relation to all key issues of the bilateral and international agendas.

Belarus and Latin America have reached a level of new calibers in their relations. High-level political dialogue with major Latin American countries — Brazil and Argentina — had positive impact on reviving business contacts, fuelled interest in setting large-scale economic projects in motion. Cuba has remained a traditional and credible partner of Belarus, with growing efficiency of the relationship.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14