The Platform of Czech Non-governmental Organisations working in the field of transition and democracy promotion abroad would like to welcome the "Joint Statement of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Visegrad Group Countries", adopted in Prague on 23 April 2008.
This statement reads: “It is a firm belief of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries that the European Union should support the process of democratisation of Belarus also by facilitating the travel of Belarusian people into the European Union (EU). The V4 are convinced that the issue of visas for Belarusian citizens is an important part of this approach. The Group is in favour of the idea to introduce a reduced, flat-rate, visa fee for Belarusian citizens and to waive visa fees for young Belarusians. The V4 calls for a discussion of the EU Member States on a possible procedure for this unilateral step by the EU unilateral. In the meantime, the V4 express their commitment to the further enhancement of the local Schengen consular co-operation mechanism in Minsk that could also contribute largely to the improvement of the current situation.”
As organisations working directly with our partners representing various groups within Belarusian civic society, and being active in the field of democracy promotion in many other countries, we would like to support the idea to introduce a reduced, flat-rate, visa fee for citizens of Belarus in order to make the EU more easily accessible for Belarusians and to enhance the level of people-to-people contacts.
We call upon the other Member States of the European Union to support this initiative and take further steps to improve the current situation.
On behalf of the Platform of Czech Non-governmental Organizations working in the field of transition and democracy promotion:
Association for International Affairs,
www.amo.cz
CEELI Institute,
www.ceeliinstitute.org
Civic Belarus,
www.civicbelarus.eu
Democracy and Culture Studies Centre (CDK),
www.cdk.cz
EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy,
www.europeum.org
Forum 2000,
www.forum2000.cz
Policy Association for an Open Society (PASOS),
www.pasos.org
People In Need,
www.peopleinneed.cz
Transitions Online,
www.tol.org
The following PASOS members in other countries have also endorsed this statement:
International Center for Human Development (ICHD), Armenia,
www.ichd.org
Expert-Grup, Moldova,
http://www.expert-grup.org
Jefferson Institute, Serbia,
www.jeffersoninst.org
Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), Slovak Republic,
www.ivo.sk
Research Centre of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association,
www.sfpa.sk