Belarus hopes that presidential elections will not hamper cooperation with EU

On June 29^th, 2015, Minsk hosted the fifth round of the Eastern Partnership informal ministerial dialogue. After the meeting, Foreign Minister Makei expressed satisfaction with the development of relations with the EU, and in an interview with the Belarusian portal TUT.by said that he hoped that the election results would allow the EU and Belarus “to avoid that vicious circle that somehow always occurred in past”. In addition, Vadim Gigin, Chief Editor of Belaruskaya Dumka, a state-run magazine was even more concrete regarding Belarus’ hopes about the EU assessment of the upcoming presidential elections, “albeit noting some progress in the conduct of the elections, western observers for the most part will remain very critical… The main thing is that such bias should not interfere with how our relations develop”.