The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Petra Bayr, has called on the international community not to forget Belarus amid Russia’s war against Ukraine and stated that Europe’s long-term security is impossible without democratic change in both Belarus and Russia.

Petra Bayr made the remarks on June 22 during the opening of the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In her opening address, she touched on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, support for democratic forces in the region, human rights, and the future architecture of European security.

A separate part of her speech was devoted to Belarus.

“While the world’s attention is rightly focused on Ukraine, we must not forget Belarus. Authoritarianism counts on exhausting our attention. We must not allow it to succeed,” Petra Bayr said.

She also highlighted the participation of Belarusian democratic representatives in the work of PACE:

“Belarus’s democratic representatives are actively contributing to our work despite all efforts by the regime of Mr. Alyaksandr Lukashenka to undermine trust and damage its effectiveness,” the PACEPresident stressed.

In her speech, Bayr noted that Belarusian democratic representatives continue to participate in the assembly’s activities and stated that PACE maintains cooperation with democratic forces from both Belarus and Russia despite attempts by authoritarian regimes to discredit them.

“We work with democratic forces from Russia and Belarus to help them lay the foundations for future countries where human rights and the rule of law are not foreign concepts, but integral components and elements of their identity,” she said.

In Bayr’s speech, Belarus was presented as one of the key countries whose future will determine the security of Europe as a whole.

“But we are doing this for ourselves as well, because European security will not be guaranteed without a democratic Belarus...” Bayr concluded.