
The European Union has rejected Sunday’s elections in Belarus as illegitimate and threatened new sanctions after Belarus held a rigged vote that effectively gives 70-year-old autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko another term in office, on top of his three-decade tenure.
“Today’s fraudulent elections in Belarus were neither free nor fair,” said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas and EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos in a joint statement. “The ruthless and unprecedented repression of human rights, the restriction of political participation and access to independent media in Belarus have deprived the electoral process of any legitimacy,” said Kallas and Kos.
Many other democratic countries also condemned the electoral fraud in Belarus. However, this did not prevent Serbia from intensifying its cooperation with Belarus despite criticizing the autocratic regime.
The Belarusian-Serbian intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation will resume its work in the first half of 2025, said Serbian government minister Nenad Popovic in a broadcast on the First News television channel, as reported by the Belarusian media company BelTA.
The intergovernmental commission has not been active since 2019, but should now deepen relations. The Serbian minister noted that the resumption of cooperation was initiated by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Aleksandar Lukashenko.
“It is very important that our presidents have entrusted us with the task of resuming their work.” We are following the instructions of our politicians and should hold an official meeting of the intergovernmental commission in the near future, before the middle of this year. Our political relations are excellent; human relations between the two nations are excellent. But economic relations have fallen behind and we must do our best to renew them. There are conditions and reasons for this. There are also obstacles in the form of sanctions. But we have to work harder and do everything possible to improve economic relations between Serbia and Belarus. “The conditions and potential are there,” says Nenad Popovic.
He also spoke about areas where cooperation should be established and accused the European Union of being responsible for the end of trade cooperation between Serbia and Belarus.
“The trade turnover between our countries could be much bigger, we need to increase it.” Promising areas include new technologies, digitalization and information technologies. Our and your programmers are doing excellent work on the global market. There is potential for collaboration between them. In addition, the products for manufacturing machine tools that you are developing at a rapid pace could be in great demand in our country. Another area of cooperation is mechanical engineering. We are familiar with Minsk tractors, buses and electric buses. I learned about Belarusian tractors as a child. Unfortunately, due to the obstacles created by the European Union, there are fewer of your tractors on the Serbian market today. We will do our best to increase their presence in the future. “The potential for cooperation in mechanical engineering is great,” emphasized the Minister.
According to him, there is a great demand for Belarusian dairy products in Serbia. “There are not many of them, but everyone appreciates their high quality,” emphasizes Nenad Popović. According to him, regular working trips between the two countries and regular meetings of chambers of commerce and commodity exchanges are necessary. “As far as supplies from Serbia are concerned, Belarus could be interested in Serbian seeds,” the minister added. /The Geopost/