EC/Belarus agreement: interim trade agreement

The committee (at which the Ambassador of the Republic of Belarus was present) adopted the report by Mr Hindley. The rapporteur proposed that the European Parliament approve the conclusion of the interim agreement so that the commercial and economic sections of the partnership and cooperation agreement, which only needed to be ratified by the Union and not the Member States, could enter into force as quickly as possible. The partnership agreement, on the other hand, needs to be ratified both by the Union and the Member States. The interim agreement mainly repeats the majority of the provisions in the partnership agreement: respect for democratic principles and human rights and the principles of the market economy; these represent a fundamental element of the partnership between the European Union and the Republic of Belarus. Finally, the rapporteur emphasized that the application of the agreement would help achieve political stability in the Republic of Belarus, which was called on to pursue its economic reforms and achieve the national consensus on which the success of the reform process depended.