Avignon, France - The European Union must open the door to a
rapprochement with Belarus and support reconstruction and peace
efforts in Georgia and Moldova if it is to counter Russia's growing
assertiveness in eastern Europe, EU foreign ministers said Saturday.
'We should encourage Belarus to improve the way they conduct their
elections and we should give them incentives. We need a process of
rebuilding trust,' Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski told
Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'It is a very good time to rethink our relations with Belarus.
Belarus is sending desperate signals to the West,' Lithuanian Foreign
Minister Petras Vaitiekunas said.
Officially, Saturday's talks were set to focus on the EU's
relationship with Russia and Georgia following their war in August.
But with French President Nicolas Sarkozy - the current holder of
the EU's rotating presidency - set to travel to Moscow for talks on
the issue on Monday, the officials turned their focus to the question
of how to respond to Russia's new assertiveness around its borders.
'In some places people are frightened of the prospect that they
might suffer from the same sort of pressure (as did Georgia before the
war). The EU is aware of this and will try to prevent a new crisis,'
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who chaired the meeting,
said.
'Crises are so hard to stop, perhaps it's better to prevent them,'
he said.
During their talks, the ministers discussed Turkish proposals on
maintaining stability in the Caucasus and debated how the EU should
strengthen international efforts to solve the conflict between Moldova
and its rebel region of Transnistria - a process in which Russia is
currently pushing for a trilateral solution.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that he had spoken with
Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin on Thursday, and that Voronin
stressed that he still saw the peace process as an internationally
monitored process.
After the talks, Foreign-Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-
Waldner said the EU was likely to offer Georgia financial assistance
to help overcome the post-war economic crisis, with the total this
year possibly reaching 100 million euros (143 million dollars).
'The military destruction is much bigger than the civilian and we
think that we have to assess our needs according to that... We will
have to help, and we will do so,' she said.
And following Belarus' release of its final political prisoners
during the summer, some EU ministers called for a strong sign to the
authoritarian regime of President Alexander Lukashenko that Minsk has
something to gain from bringing in democratic reforms.
Belarus 'is not a regime that we admire but we should recognize
what has been done. We now have an anomaly, we've dropped sanctions on
Cuba where there are 260 political prisoners, Belarus has released its
prisoners,' Sikorski said.
The EU currently has travel bans in place against Belarusian regime
figures, and its first step should therefore be to step up diplomatic
contacts, officials said.
Ministers have decided in principle to invite Belarusian Foreign
Minister Sergei Martynov to talks in Brussels, although it is not yet
sure whether they will do so ahead of the next formal ministerial
session on September 15, Kouchner told dpa.
However, member states remained divided on whether they should make
a move before Belarus holds elections on September 28.
'It would be good to send some signals now, and in case of
democratic free and fair elections to change (the EU's) general
policies,' Vaitiekunas said.
'We'll have to have a look at that at a later stage,' Finnish
Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said.
EU officials say that a key question is whether Belarus will follow
Russia's lead and recognize the independence of the breakaway Georgian
provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - something the EU firmly
rejects.
'Belarus can show real willingness to open up, move closer to
Western Europe if they do not also recognize South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. But of course Belarus at the moment is under very heavy
pressure from Russia,' Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said.
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