Pravda Ru

Putin and Lukashenko certain CIS must exist

04/06/2005 11:48

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko believes there are no
problems in the relations with Russia

Negotiations between the presidents of Russia and Belarus took place
in the resort city of Sochi on April 4, 2005. Vladimir Putin and
Alexander Lukashenko’s meetings cannot be referred to as “frequent”
in spite of the fact that Russia and Belarus comprise the Unified
State. The previous meeting took place during the work of the CIS
Summit in October of 2004. The political life of the Commonwealth
of Independent States has experienced considerable changes over the
recent six months. The revolutions in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan have
cast doubts on further existence of the Commonwealth. Lukashenko and
Putin did have a lot of subjects for discussion.

Vladimir Putin stated in the beginning of the meeting that they could
discuss the suggestion from the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan
Nazarbayev, who suggested cutting the administrative personnel of
the Commonwealth, abolishing some of its departments and setting up
the CIS Security Council. The problem of reforming the Commonwealth
of Independent States will most likely be given more attention in
the near future, taking into consideration a not-very-CIS-friendly
attitude of Ukraine and Georgia.

There is no clarity on the issue of joint currency for the
time being. When Vladimir Putin visited Armenia at the end of
March, he stated that the CIS did not have a goal of the economic
integration. The Commonwealth was established to make the break-up of
the USSR happen in a civilized way. The Russian president believes,
however, that one should not give up the Commonwealth as a bad job,
for it is still a perfect organization to exchange opinions between
administrations of its members. “We came to conclusion that the CIS
must exist. If it cannot solve principal issues, it must exist as
an agency for top talks,” Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko
stated at the conference with Putin.

The joint economic space, which incorporates Russia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan and Ukraine, serves the purpose of the economic integration
between the countries of the former USSR. Putin and Lukashenko believe
that Russia and Belarus do not have any outstanding problems of the
economic cooperation. “There are no big problems on the matter,
and I can’t distinguish small ones either,” Alexander Lukashenko said.

However, Russia and Belarus do not have a common approach to the
question of the joint currency. The currency of the Unified State
was originally planned to be introduced in the very beginning of the
current year. The date was pushed back for a year, till January 2006,
according to the request from the Belarussian government. The joint
currency issue is the key aspect of further development of cooperation
between Russia and Belarus, RIA Novosti quoted an anonymous source
in the Kremlin. In addition, the two countries have not achieved
an agreement regarding the establishment of the joint gas-transport
enterprise.

There are definitely a lot of problems that Russia and Belarus have to
deal with. However, if Russia’s relations with Belarus are compared
to the ones with Georgia, the state of things in the Unified State
seems to be almost perfect indeed. Alexander Lukashenko is known for
his harsh and resolute statements, especially when it goes about
gas prices, but he definitely can’t match his Georgian colleague,
Mikhail Saakashvili.

As far as the series of political crises in the Commonwealth is
concerned, one should say that Vladimir Putin’s meetings with his CIS
colleagues will inevitably be viewed from the angle of a possible
revolution in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, etc, and
Russia’s actions in response.

According to the results of the meeting between Lukashenko and Putin,
the Russian administration intends to give the first priority to the
development of economic links. However, it would not be correct for
the two presidents to talk about the economic part of the relations
between Russia and Belarus. Politics is the continuation of economics,
whereas economics is the ground of politics.

Vasily Bubnov