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What Do Leaderships Of Russia, Belarus Hide From Public?

What Do Leaderships Of Russia, Belarus Hide From Public?
Valer Karbalevich

The waiting for the truth will not last long.

For almost three months now, official Minsk and Moscow have been exchanging documents in deep secrecy about the prospects for bilateral relations. The content of these messages is secret, though. Both parties in every way hide everything from the public, even from the "deputies."

Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei said: “The time will come and everyone will know everything. Now there is a routine work. ” Sergei Lavrov, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said something similar: “When negotiations are held, the negotiators do not go out to the public every day and do not tell who suggested what to whom.”

However, the problem is that what is called a “routine work” is a situation where the fate of statehood is at stake. Especially, when Russian officials deliberately obscure things, do not tell the whole truth, or reveal no truth at all, and try to hide their true plans.

The trick of the Russian side

For example, Vladimir Putin, at a plenary meeting of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 7, arguing about the Belarusian-Russian relations, said: “Today there are no grounds for state unification, we have no such plans, no goals.” And at the same time he added that it is only about the construction of a “union state” of Russia and Belarus.

But the trick or catch of the Russian president is that the implementation of the treaty on the creation of a “union state” means the state association. After all, in this case we are talking about the creation of a single government, the adoption of a “constitutional act of the union state,” the transition to a single currency. And this is the union, more precisely, even the absorption of Belarus by Russia.

Therefore, such explanations, as well as optimistic and vigorous statements by the Prime Minister of Belarus Siarheii Rumas (the positions of the parties coincide by 70%) only add to distrust.

What is hidden behind cunning statements

The statements of the Russian and Belarusian members of the government on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum on June 8 did not clarify the situation, but allowed to see crrtain outlines of the negotiations.

Minister of Economic Development of Russia Maxim Oreshkin said that the issue of the single currency is being actively discussed, and, as you can understand, already in practical terms: “How to do it, in what time frame to do it”. Interestingly, the Russian side gives information about this, while the Belarusian government officials are trying to hide it. After all, the transition of Belarus to the Russian money automatically leads to a single monetary policy, tax policy, macroeconomic policy.

That is, having lost its money, Belarus loses the possibility of an independent economic policy. Without own money, Belarus’s dependence on Moscow will be approximately the same as of any of the Russian provinces'.

Both sides note that all sore issues should be resolved in a package. But it turns out that Minsk and Moscow have different packages.

The difference in the positions of the parties

Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Anton Siluanov said that until integration issues are resolved, it does not make sense to “pull out” issues of compensation for losses from tax maneuvers or issues of crediting Belarus. That is, first the unification of the two states and only then the continuation of subsidies to the Belarusian economy.

On the contrary, Minister of Economy of Belarus Dzmitry Kruty interprets this package differently. According to him, the issues of compensation for the tax maneuver should be considered in the energy package, in the context of the formation of single markets for gas, oil and petroleum products, and the electricity market. It should be understood that we are talking about the documents of the EAEU, according to which Russia has pledged not to worsen the conditions for the supply of energy resources to Belarus.

In another way, Dzmitry Kruty sees the problem of the single currency: “In the union agreement itself, it is stated that in the conditions of creating a single economic space in all areas, the single currency becomes the final”. That is, first the unimpeded supply of Belarusian products to the Russian market, the import of oil and gas at Russian domestic prices, and only then we will talk about the single currency.

Waiting for the truth will not last long

And further. On June 15, the ministers will meet in Moscow, and on June 20 - the prime ministers of Belarus and Russia. As a result of these negotiations, a document on the prospects for integration should appear. The wait won't be long.

Valer Karbalevich, Radio Svaboda

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