6th round of EU-Belarus Human Rights Dialogue takes place in Brussels

The Euro­pean Union and Belarus dis­cussed exten­sive­ly pol­i­cy devel­op­ments, the imple­men­ta­tion of the Nation­al Human Rights Action Plan in Belarus and the human rights sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try. 
 

Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion was paid to the free­doms of expres­sion, assem­bly and asso­ci­a­tion. The par­tic­i­pants also reviewed poli­cies on gen­der equal­i­ty and the fight against vio­lence in the fam­i­ly and the state of their imple­men­ta­tion both in the EU and Belarus. 

In the con­text of the recent exe­cu­tions, the EU reit­er­at­ed its unequiv­o­cal oppo­si­tion to the use of the death penal­ty at all times and in all cir­cum­stances.

Belarus’ recent open­ness to coop­er­a­tion in pro­mot­ing human rights in inter­na­tion­al fora, includ­ing coop­er­a­tion via UN mech­a­nisms such as the Uni­ver­sal Peri­od­ic Review, is a pos­i­tive devel­op­ment. At the same time, fur­ther coop­er­a­tion by Belarus with UN spe­cial pro­ce­dures man­date hold­ers is need­ed.  

A num­ber of indi­vid­ual cas­es were also addressed.

The meet­ing was opened by the EU Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore. The Euro­pean Union del­e­ga­tion was led by Thomas Mayr Hart­ing Man­ag­ing Direc­tor for Europe and Cen­tral Asia in the Euro­pean Exter­nal Action Ser­vice (EEAS), and includ­ed Mara Mari­na­ki, Prin­ci­pal Advi­sor for gen­der issues. The Belaru­sian del­e­ga­tion was led by Oleg Kravchenko, Deputy Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Belarus. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Euro­pean Union Mem­ber States also observed the Dia­logue. 

The Euro­pean Union appre­ci­at­ed the active par­tic­i­pa­tion and con­tri­bu­tion of a num­ber of civ­il soci­ety and non-gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions on civ­il, polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, social and cul­tur­al rights in parts of the Dia­logue.

The next reg­u­lar Human Rights Dia­logue meet­ing between the EU and Belarus is expect­ed to take place in 2020.