Media Find Out Contents Of 31st ‘Road Map’ On Belarus-Russia Integration

Moscow suggested creating 12 supranational bodies.

During negotiations on the integration of Russia and Belarus, Moscow suggested creating 12 supranational bodies, including a single emission center, an auditing chamber, a court of the “union state”, and a single customs authority, RBC found out.

What was in the 31st “road map”?

At negotiations on deeper integration with Belarus, Moscow proposed starting the work on the creation of 12 supranational bodies. Among them - a single issuing center, implying the introduction of a single currency, the auditing chamber, a Court of the Union State, a single customs authority, a single authority for registering property of the Union State, unified tax and antitrust authorities, and the uniform regulators in the following areas: transport, industry, agriculture, communications, plus the regulator of the combined markets of gas, oil and electricity. Three sources familiar with the negotiations reported this to RBC.

The creation of these bodies is stipulated in the last, so-called 31st “road map” for the integration of the two countries. However, no one talks about immediate formation of these bodies - it is proposed to develop “road maps” for their creation. The RBC interlocutors found it difficult to specify the dates. The document also refers to the development of “road maps” regarding the joint defense strategy of Russia and Belarus, the creation of common data banks of the law-enforcement agencies, the unification of legislation governing the activities of the law-enforcement agencies and special services.

However, in the summer and autumn of 2019, Putin and Lukashenka agreed to focus on discussing 30 “road maps”, adopt them as a package, and after that, perhaps, return to working out the 31st “road map”, as another interlocutor familiar with the course of the integration talks told RBC. Now they are paused at the initiative of Minsk, he adds.

RBC sent inquiries to Spokesman for the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, and to the press-center of the Belarusian government.

Lukashenka has repeatedly denied that the parties are discussing the creation of supranational bodies in negotiations on deepened integration. The Russian government is trying to link the solution of economic integration problems with political ones and the creation of supranational bodies, but there was an agreement not to negotiate this, the Belarusian ruler said in an interview with Ekho Moscow on December 24 last year. The day before, it became known about the existence of the 31st “road map”. It was reported by Dmitry Medvedev, who was then Prime Minister. According to him, after completing 30 other “road maps”, “it will be possible to look at the 31st “road map” dedicated to further integration, including such institutions as supranational bodies, a single currency and a single emission center.”

Why negotiations were suspended

In early March, Belarusian Foreign Minister Uladzimir Makei said that Minsk sees no reason to work on an integration project until the oil disputes are resolved. The parties fail to agree on the oil price and supply volumes because Minsk is dissatisfied with the tax maneuver underway in Russia since 2019, which consists in the gradual and complete replacement of the export duty in proportion to the increased mineral resources extraction tax. Earlier, Russia sold oil to Belarus without this duty: in December 2018, for example, it amounted to $ 135.1 per ton. Subject to the preservation of this benefit, Belarus signed an agreement on the establishment of the Customs Union in 1995, and later agreed to join the EAEU in 2015. Therefore, Minsk is now insisting on compensation for the tax maneuver. In 2019, Belarus estimated its losses from it at $ 330 million, in 2020 - at $ 420-430 million. By 2024, according to its own estimates, Minsk will lose up to $ 11 billion. And after the price of the Russian oil for it equals to the world price, will lose $ 3 billion each year.

At the end of last year, the parties managed to conceptually agree on how Moscow will compensate Minsk for losses from the abolition of export duties by introducing a reverse excise tax for Belarusian refineries, that is, in fact, Russia agreed to subsidize them. The problem with this decision is that it will work only after the unification of tax laws, and their development will take at least two to three years. In addition, a unified tax code should be developed as part of the integration process, which is paused so far.

Negotiations are underway on an interim solution that will allow to level the consequences of the maneuver only for 2020. This is possible due to the complete abolition of the bonuses that Minsk pays to Russian oil companies: for a ton of oil it is about $ 11.7, that is, $ 1.5 per barrel, sources told RBC earlier. On March 11, Prime Ministers of Russia and Belarus Mikhail Mishustin and Siarhei Rumas met in Moscow.

Two days later, on the evening of March 13, Mishustin met with representatives of the Russian oil industry. After that, several Russian companies agreed to reduce the per ton bonus by $ 7, another interlocutor told RBC. He refused to specify the names of the companies, saying that this is a commercial secret. The volume of supplies the parties are negotiating is 18 million tons by the end of 2020, he noted. However, Belarus continues to insist on the complete abolition of the bonuses, the RBC source said: Minsk considers the current option as an interim one.