OREANDA-NEWS. On 15 July 2009 was announced, that Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gave an interview to Austrian daily Die Presse, the press service of the president reported.

Asked which is Belarus’ priority – the Customs Union with Russia and Kazakhstan or a free trade zone with the EU, Lukashenko said: “Time is our priority. We will never give up on the Customs Union because it is lucrative to us. But we would not mind being part of the EU free trade zone. If we were offered the possibility tomorrow, we would make use of it,” Lukashenko.

“We tend to prioritize what we can implement earlier. If the Customs Union starts working for real in 2010, it will become our priority. Whether we will have a free trade zone of Belarus, Ukraine and the European Union or not we don’t know yet. We have had nothing but discussions so far. It would be good if we established the Customs Union together with Kazakhstan and Russia, it will be very profitable to us. If we pull it off, we will be joining the WTO together, too. It would naturally be very advantageous if we created a free trade zone with the European Union”.

Lukashenko answered over 25 questions about Belarus’ participation in integration institutions, interest in the Eastern Partnership initiative, the country’s engagement with the Russian Federation, cooperation with the European Union, credit cooperation with the IMF, privatization processes in the country, as well as some personal questions and shared his forecast of Belarus for the next 10 years.