ArmInfo. We have to discuss the issue of priorities for the further development of the EAEU, Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko said on August 24 at an extraordinary meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Tsaghkadzor, Armenia.
As the head of the Belarusian government pointed out, in the face of existing challenges and a rapidly changing environment, it is really necessary to clearly define the vectors for the further development of the EAEU. "Let's be frank: the main benefits from ensuring the four basic freedoms - the movement of goods, services, capital, labor - we have basically already received. The Union gave us its start-up capital and requires the launch and promotion of new formats of economic interaction. Therefore, the Belarusian side supports the initiative to start work on the medium-term development of the EAEU, including the presentation of relevant approaches in the form of a declaration proposed by the Russian side>, Roman Golovchenko said.
According to the Prime Minister of Belarus, the declaration should be programmatic. "It should not repeat the current work, duplicate the strategy for the development of Eurasian integration until 2025. In our opinion, it may not be strictly limited to the framework of the Treaty on the EAEU. Otherwise, there will simply be no practical sense in such a declaration>, the Prime Minister noted.
At the same time, as the Belarusian prime minister pointed out, the adoption of new strategic documents should in no way weaken efforts to implement the strategy for the development of Eurasian integration until 2025. <There are still 2.5 years left, and we cannot allow the unfulfilled activities to migrate to the next document. The Belarusian side adheres to the principled position that the Strategy-2025 should be implemented in full>, he said.
Roman Golovchenko also touched upon energy issues, noting that the EAEU countries have a significant supply of fuel and energy resources. "Although work on common energy markets is in an active phase, there are still fundamentally unresolved issues, the development of which depends on the further development of the EAEU power unit," he said.
The Prime Minister also stressed the importance of expanding cooperation in the field of industrial cooperation and new technologies. The Eurasian Union should resolve the issue of food production, which is the most important component of national security, he noted. The Union has a fairly high level of self-sufficiency in agricultural resources, but dependence on imported seeds and breeding stock continues to create problems. The most important task for the medium term is to replace foreign genetic material with domestic, regardless of which third countries it comes from and what kind of relationship any of the EAEU countries currently has with them, Golvchenko added. As Golovchenko noted, reaching a certain threshold of self-sufficiency in seed and a pedigree material by 2030 - for example, 80% can be set as a landmark.
Prime Minister of Belarus Roman Golovchenko called on the member countries of the EAEU to work out consolidated responses to Western sanctions. <I cannot help but recall that so far we have not taken substantive decisions to develop a mechanism for taking consolidated response measures to the economic pressure exerted on the EAEU member states by third countries. And this is not just our wish - this is a decision that was made at a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council back in 2021>, the head of the Belarusian government said. He proposed taking measures to create an effective mechanism to counter such pressure, following the instructions of the heads of the EAEU states.
