BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

28/05/2008

Putin's premiership of RF-Belarus may prove more than formality

By Itar-Tass World Service writer Lyudmila Alexandrova

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is now the head of government of the Russia-Belarus Union State.

Although on the face of it his appointment was sheer formality, analysts suspect that the scale of the former Russian president's personality is so significant that it will surely benefit the process of building and fostering the Union State further on.

Experts say the construction of the Union has been very slow-going for the past ten years mostly through the fault of Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. At this point delaying the political integration of the two countries further on looks no longer possible and Putin, as many expect, will dedicate a large portion of his efforts to this cause.

Putin was appointed to chair the Council of Ministers of the Russia-Belarus Union State on Tuesday. The resolution to this effect was signed by the chairman of the Supreme State Council of the Union State, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Lukashenko's press-service said that after Putin took over Russia's premiership it was necessary to accomplish the related formalities and to endorse him as the chief of the Union State's Council of Ministers (Russia currently holds the rotating chairmanship). Before, the post was taken by the former prime minister, Viktor Zubkov. The latter's predecessor in that capacity was Mikhail Fradkov.

Holding seats on the panel are the ministers of foreign affairs, economics and finance, chiefs of the main industrial and functional regulatory bodies and the state secretary. The two countries' prime ministers take turns as heads of the union government.

The Union State of Russia and Belarus is a confederation. The Union's emergence was approved on April 2, 1997, for the purpose of uniting the humanitarian, economic and military space. Since December 8, 1999 the official name of the alliance has been the Union State of Russia and Belarus.

Over the past eight years the budget of the union state has grown ten-fold to over 4 billion rubles.

At the same time the process of creating the political bodies of the common state of Russia and Belarus has lasted for too long, and this affects the economic integration.

"There have been no factors in sight to this day that might speed up the political integration process," says the Center for Current Politics portal. "At present the association looks more like an image-making project, and not as an integration process being carried out in practice."

Moscow and Minsk still have a number of fundamental differences between them, which hinder their effective cooperation. In particular, this concerns the project for creating a common constitution (Russia and Belarus have been unable to agree on the issue of power sharing), and of the Union State's transition to a common currency.

The Constitutional Act of the Union State remains stalled at the level of individual projects. In Russia, several options of introducing the supreme post in the Union State have been discussed.

According to one option, the Russian president will be also the president of the Union State, and the Belarussian president, the Union's vice-president. Under another proposed option the head of the Union State will be elected by the people, and the Russian and Belarussian heads of state would be the two vice-presidents. And option number three implies the presidents of Russia and Belarus would take the rotating presidency of the union for a period of seven years each.

None of the proposed plans suits the Belarussian president, because in any case his sovereignty will be clipped.

In the economic sphere Russia insists that in a future state there should be one currency, the Russian ruble, and the emission center should be in Moscow. Minsk disagrees. In case of the introduction of the Russian ruble as the sole legal tender in Belarus the country's economic sovereignty will be upset.

"In order to speed up integration the two countries should make up their mind how to go about the business of the common currency and constitution," says the on-line periodical Vzglyad. "Observers are certain it is Lukashenko, who is responsible for procrastinations. Moscow wants to have wider relations with Minsk, because Belarus might prove part of the asymmetric response to the missile defense in Europe."

Political scientists are certain that Putin's appointment will give a new impetus to maintaining and developing bilateral ties.

The foreign policy expert at the Center for Current Politics, Yevgenia Voiko, is quoted by Vzglyad as saying Putin will be accelerating the process of unification with the aim to propel it to a higher level, and to convert the still embryonic association into a real organization.

Voiko believes that Putin and Lukashenko have a relationship of trust and that it is in neither man's interests to put pressures on each other. The more so, since at the informal level Belarus is considered as a stronghold for Russia's asymmetric response to the deployment of the United States' third missile defense site, the one in Poland and the Czech Republic.

"If Belarus agrees to offer its territory for the deployment of Russian missiles, Russia might agree to make some concessions as far as the terms of unification is concerned," Voiko speculates.

The Agency of Political News says that "although the post of the prime minister of a chimerical state is purely a token one at the moment, it remains to be seen whether Putin's appointment will prove sheer formality. Or the other way round."

The leader of the International Eurasian Movement, Alexander Dugin, is quoted by the Eurasia portal as saying his vision of the appointment is positive.

"This means that for the first time ever since the emergence of the Union State of Russia and Belarus this structure is becoming genuinely meaningful. Putin is not just the prime minister, he is the key political figure in Russia. There where there is Putin, there is a political process on, and not on paper, but in reality. This is going to be a genuine breakthrough towards the integration of the two countries."

The deputy director of the CIS Countries Institute, Vladimir Zharikhin, agrees. The political scientist believes that at his new post Putin will intensify in earnest the process of political integration.

"The model that there exists in the Union State today no longer satisfies Russia or Belarus," Zharikhin told Itar-Tass. "Further economic integration will be impossible without the introduction of some elements of political integration."

"Either we remain stalled at this level of economic integration (and even a step back is possible), or it will be necessary, despite the natural reluctance of either elite, to start introducing political integration elements, to create supra-national agencies," he said.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12724675

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