Lithuania’s Ex-PM: Future of Belarus Lies In European Union

Belarus can have only the European way of development.

“Belarus has just one course for development. This course is Europe. I believe Belarusians can use the experience of their neighbors from Ukraine, who stood for exactly this civilized future for their country. This future is the European Union. In our region, the European way of development remains the steadiest.”

Former head of the Lithuanian government, today’s leader of the parliamentary opposition in the Seimas Andrius Kubilius has expressed such opinion in a conversation with Radio Svaboda.

He has come to Minsk to tell the Belarusian individual entrepreneurs about the working conditions of the small business in his country.

Answering the journalists’ question about Lithuania’s attitude towards abolishment of the European sanctions against the Belarusian officials, Kubilius has noted:

“The Lithuanian politicians have no common opinion as for whether Brussels did the right thing or not when it lifted the sanctions from the Belarusian officials. Some think it was a hasty and prejudicial decision as the issues which had been the ground for imposing sanctions still remained partially unsolved. In my opinion, the Belarusian authorities have a lot to think about now, especially it concerns the situation with human rights. Belarus remains a European country. Thus, the attitude to the freedom of a person should also be European. I believe that the European Union abolished the sanctions hoping that the Belarusian authorities would start changing their policies. I don’t know whether they are paying close attention to it in Brussels. Here, in Vilnius, we carefully watch every piece of news from Belarus. We do care what is happening at our neighbors’. Maybe because we are located closer to Minsk, than Brussels, we are not so naïve to take at your authorities’ word. If Lukashenka wants to normalize the relations with the European Union, he should prove his intentions by actions, not words.

Belarus will hold the “parliamentary elections in September. The transparency thereof, compliance with the ODIHR OSCE standards will be a response to Brussel’s initiative on lifting sanctions. Besides, Lithuania will also hold parliamentary elections in October. However, I can tell straightaway that, whoever wins our elections, the attention to Belarus will remain the same. This is absolutely true.”

As for today’s conference “From Big State to Small Business: Basic Principles of Structural Transformations” , Kubilius has expressed the following opinion:

“I said before that we cared about the destinies of our neighbors – Belarusians and Ukrainians. We want them so much to become the members of the common European family. That is why we help. Today’s meeting is our expert assistance. Our experience has proved that attention to the small business remains a much more effective way than orientation at the state economy and only those businessmen who have special relations with the authorities. I noticed how the Belarusian individual entrepreneurs reacted when we spoke about the attitude to business in Lithuania, together with Nikolas Maiauskas. Especially when it concerned figures. I said that our country would receive EUR 13 billion from the European Union in 2013-2020. And more than half of this money will go to support small and medium-sized businesses. After the reaction of the hall, I realized that for Belarus it was exorbitant money."

Answering the question why foreign investors are investing big money in Lithuania, avoiding Belarus, the former Prime Minister has noted:

“Investments need to be hunted for. We did not understand this in the beginning. We hoped that Lithuania was a nice and attractive country all by itself and that the investors would come in due course. However, time showed these were false hopes. Foreign capital doesn’t need to be told stories about how beautiful a country is. They are primarily interested in legislation, opportunities for development and prospects. These are business people. They want to make money. Therefore, it is necessary to negotiate with them on how the process will go, how much of the profit they would allocate to creating jobs etc. And if we just say, come to the “blue-eyed country” and everything will be alright – such approach doesn’t work with a serious business.”