On the 2nd day of the winter plenary session of the European Committee of the Regions, ECR President and Marshal of the Podkarpackie region in Poland, Mr Władysław Ortyl urged deepened cooperation with Belarus in order to further democratisation and overall economic growth in the country. This intervention was directed at the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy, Mr Olivér Várhelyi.

Marshal Ortyl urged the members of the CoR and the EU more broadly to continue to support the development of a free and prosperous Belarus. Mr Ortyl made several key policy recommendations in order to bolster the EU's relationship with Belarus.

Firstly, he commended the EU for not recognising the result of the rigged and undemocratic presidential election wherein the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected despite protests from international observers.  

The ECR President also called for increasing cooperation with local and regional authorities in Belarus through creation of peer-to-peer exchange programmes with their EU counterparts.

Moreover, he called for creating internship programmes for Belarusian students and young graduates in local and regional authorities in the EU. To make this happen, the European Commission should set up a dedicated internship fund.

Mr Ortyl expanded by appealing to the Commission to establish the Eastern European School of Public Administration in one of the Eastern Partnership countries where civil servants and officials from various Eastern Partnership countries (including Belarus) could be trained in a coordinated manner. By doing this, the Marshal argued that it would advance democratisation and responsible governmental practices.

Władysław Ortyl concluded by calling for the development and strengthening of cross-border cooperation programmes. He gave the example of the ongoing Poland-Belarus-Ukraine program, in which the Podkarpackie region has been a participant. This program has been successfully supporting the development of the area for the last 16 years. Under this flagship programme over 450 projects were implemented for the around EUR 400 million.

Programmes such as this advance European values, build social trust and create lasting bonds between communities in both Europe and Belarus.