The current conversation has become a landmark both for the public and for the Head of State. Today's Big Conversation with the President, on the one hand, summed up the year 2018, and on the other, gave an opportunity to get feedback, understand what people really care about, what problems they have and what is needed to solve them. In the middle of spring, the Head of State will traditionally address the people and parliament. Therefore, today's dialogue is also important from this point of view. The outcome of the Big Conversation will form the basis of the concept of our near future.
More than 200 people including experts, officials, and journalists discussed what everyone cares about: economy, prices, education, security, politics, sovereignty, sports, music, hobbies. There were no minor or irrelevant topics.
Feedback is important for the Head of State. Therefore, the conversation was broadcast live.
The degree of tension grows in the world. Probably, this is the reason why Alexander Lukashenko began with foreign policy issues.
Recently, several rounds of Belarusian-Russian negotiations, meetings between Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin have passed. Knowing the openness of our leader, the journalists were counting on details. After all, there was a lot of speculation around this. On the way of integration, it is important to solve problems that arise. Certain negative aspects are obvious: from torpedoing supplies of Belarusian food to restrictions on permits in the field of transportation. A loan for the Belarusian NPP is more expensive than that for Vietnam or Armenia. When signing the treaty on the union state the countries were mainly guided by the idea that Belarus and Russia need to be together. Alexander Lukashenko sticks to this position today.
The discussion revolved around information security. The new century brought a lot of trouble: journalism goes into mobile phones. Bloggers do not always take a constructive position. Information attacks come from different sides. One of the proposals made today was to organize training for journalists with new technologies, using foreign experience.
The timing of the parliamentary and presidential elections will be announced in March-April.
Obviously, such public discussion becomes a good platform for exchanging views. Very versatile questions were voiced, including those received from different countries. For example, there was a question from China about recognition of the scientific degrees obtained there. By the way, Beijing remains a reliable partner for Minsk.












