Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-21-Speech-1-145"
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"en.20080421.17.1-145"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, official EU policy towards Belarus is known as a policy of ‘differentiation’: on the one hand it is critical of the dictator Lukashenko while, on the other, it seeks to encourage and facilitate dialogue with the people. But charging EUR 60 – a third of a month’s salary in Belarus – for a visa flies in the face of that policy. As a result, ordinary people in Belarus regard EU policy towards them as a policy of empty words!
This issue has completely obscured our Schengen policy and is actually undermining the credibility of EU foreign policy. We cannot allow such a situation to continue. The democracy that we want to see developing in Belarus can come into being only if we make it easier for people from Belarus to see for themselves how democracy works in our countries. Any other approach would simply play into Lukashenko’s hands. So we need to make a change and the Council told us, in its answer, that the reason why no change has yet been made is that the Commission has not tabled the necessary proposal.
So, please, get to work! Put a proposal before the Council that will make it easier – in the interests of promoting democracy in Belarus – for people there to obtain visas."@en1
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