Eurasian integration strategy until 2025 should be without reservations - Lukashenko
MINSK. Feb 27 (Interfax) - The strategic areas for the development of Eurasian economic integration for the period until 2025 should be a serious document, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said.
"We plan to sign an integration strategy for the period until 2025 in Minsk in May 2019. Of course, we should offer a serious version of this strategy. Without any reservations, etc.," Lukashenko was quoted as saying by the state agency BelTA at a meeting with Mikhail Myasnikovich, board chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission, in Minsk on Thursday.
"If we want to build our union on real principles of integration (and we should remind everyone of what these are once again in this strategy, in case anyone has forgotten), we should propose a real program for integration," he said.
Lukashenko also said he believes work on the creation of common markets in the Eurasian Economic Union should be done gradually, without waiting for the agreed upon date of 2025. "We need to prevent a situation in which we meet in December 2024, as usual, and fail to reach agreements on something; someone won't be ready to work according to the unified principles of the oil, gas, agrarian, and alcohol products market. And then we begin deleting things or leaving restrictions in place, etc. Therefore, we need to move gradually until 2025," he said.