BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

29/01/2007

Expert: Lukashenko denies himself because of diffidence

Free Europe Foundation Managing Director Oleg Sapozhnikov commented to a REGNUM correspondent on the situation with Russian-Belarusian oil and gas agreements and told about prospects of the relations between Russia and Belarus.

"Alexander Lukashenko's statements on canceling the Belarusian-Russian agreements on oil supplies, later denied by his own press office, are nothing more than a manifestation of the uncertainty of the Belarusian leadership in economic stability in the country. Fulfillment of the budget in 2007 will face several difficulties. On the one hand, Belarus' direct expenditures will increase because of rising expenditures for gas and oil imported from Russia; on the other hand, budget revenues will decrease because of sinking effectiveness of Belarusian oil refineries. Naturally, it causes President Lukashenko's discontent.

"To make up for losses of several billions and, thus, balance the budget, Belarus will have to resort to serious changes in the economic policy. Belarus does not have many alternatives here. First, it would be most sensible to stipulate economic growth on the expense of establishing favorable conditions for investors. But result of such measures cannot be momentous.

"Second, Minsk can cut down public expenditures, but it is impossible on domestic policy reasons,

"Third, the Belarusian government can increase budget revenues at the expense of increasing taxes, but it will negatively affect the economic growth in general.

"Lukashenko chose the fourth way - to put the burden of expenditures to his foreign economic partners - Russia.

"In the recent Russian-Belarusian debates, Russia has a more distinct position: it does not claim anything from Belarus apart from what it claims from other countries. Belarus periodically threatens to impose extra financial burden on Russian companies only because they are Russian. It resembles very much a threat by Belarus to impose discriminating measures towards Russia.

"At that, the Belarusian side, facing evident problems with finding argumentation, does not leave hopes to preserve Russia as donor of the Belarusian budget. Here comes constant tossing about, starting from direct threats addressed to Russian companies to declarations of their satisfaction with cooperation with them. Up to the last moment, Russia also showed some ambiguity in its policy towards Belarus. On the one hand, Belarus is an ally-state, and the Belarusians are a sister-nation; on the other hand it is another country that must settle its financial problems on its own.

"I think that Russia has decided recently on its policy towards Belarus. This is a new policy in the whole post-Soviet territory and it can be defined as follows: never mix business and friendship. And Belarus will not become exclusion here."

Source:

http://www.regnum.ru/english/polit/773849.html

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