Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko spoke about the prospects of Eurasian integration through 2045 at the EAEU summit in St. Petersburg on 25 December. The declaration on the main tasks and key areas of further development of integration processes within the Eurasian Economic Union for the period up to 2030 and 2045, prepared during the Russian presidency, was presented to the attention of the leaders of the countries at the summit, BelTA has learned.

“It is important that our countries do not live only in the moment. We clearly understand the goals of integration in the foreseeable future. On Russia's initiative, a declaration has been prepared to define the objectives of the Eurasian Economic Union development through 2030 and integration through 2045. Clear goals have been outlined in a strict spirit of economic pragmatism: further construction of the common Eurasian market, providing it with key goods and resources, development of cooperation, formation of a common transport and logistics space and a common financial market, active international positioning of the EAEU,” the Belarusian head of state said.

According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, the declaration should be followed up with the relevant roadmap: “The declaration defines the most important directions of our movement. It is a conceptual thing. That is why we have decided today, talking one-on-one, that we should adopt a roadmap - a concrete plan for our development under the declaration. It will not be easy, but we will adopt such a plan.”

On financial support for cooperation

According to Aleksandr Lukashenko, special attention is paid to the issue of financial support of Eurasian cooperation projects in industry.

“This is a good novelty. We will build new enterprises together and thus develop our economy. The relevant decision has been taken, the criteria for selecting such projects have been developed and approved,” he said.

On transport, logistics and digital infrastructure

Equally important is the work on the joint development of transport, logistics and digital infrastructure of member states, increasing the transport connectivity of the Union with actively developing markets of third countries.

“The alignment of our infrastructural capabilities, the implementation of the potential of international organizations and development institutions can and should help develop a continental transport, logistics, trade and economic space,” the head of state said.

According to him, a good example of such unification of efforts is the North-South transport corridor, which is being implemented on the initiative of the president of Russia with the participation of Azerbaijan and Iran. “It will be a breakthrough in transportation and logistics. It is important to give this project momentum. In no case it should be left on paper,” the Belarusian leader said.

On the “integration of integrations” and the EAEU status in the world

Maximum delivery on the messages and directions reflected in the declaration is a task for the governments of the countries and the Eurasian Economic Commission. “Amid the development of a new highly competitive geopolitical environment, we would like to see the Eurasian Economic Union, if not by 2030 then by 2045, as one of the main global poles of economic attraction,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

The head of state said that at the one-on-one meeting he compared the EAEU with other integration associations, such as the SCO and BRICS. “SCO is a most powerful organization. Many who are part of the EAEU are members of this association. BRICS is very hyped up (and rightly so), possibly a powerful organization in the future, which is looked at by many countries dissatisfied with the development of the situation in the UN. But comparing them with EAEU, I can conclude that we have more opportunities. Both SCO and BRICS have not advanced economically as much as we have. They do not have this momentum. They have not yet reached the level of integration, which we have already achieved,” the Belarusian leader explained.

According to him, the main thing now is to keep momentum and not to stop in cooperation and development of integration: “We need to move in this direction. We need to be a leading regional and global economic organization. If we have the economy, we will have policies and also military and political cooperation, if we have something to defend. It will not go anywhere either. We have a chance. The most important thing is to move further.”

Aleksandr Lukashenko emphasized the urgency of the EAEU's further movement along the track of Belarus' “integration of integrations” initiative, which made part of the main directions of the EAEU international activities for 2024 approved at the summit in St. Petersburg.

“The document is capacious, correct, and thorough. However, as for the issues of international positioning of the Union and international activities of the Commission, it needs to be more system-based. We need a certain plan of action,” the Belarusian leader said.

According to him, it is necessary to work more on the development of the institution of an observer state at the union, to make more efforts for the real alignment of integration potentials of the EAEU, SCO and BRICS. “Despite the fact that we have more opportunities, we need to cooperate more closely with them. This will only make us stronger. We should take advantage of participation in such dynamically developing associations with Russia which is one of their key founding countries. We will support the Russian Federation in every possible way in this important collective work,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.