BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/06/2009

Minsk milk war turns sour

Andy Potts

Russia's political spat with Belarus has curdled into a full-blown milk war, with Moscow banning virtually all dairy products from Minsk, seemingly in a tit-for-tat move after President Alexander Lukashenko lashed out at his former best ally.

The ongoing diplomatic spat over Lukashenko's refusal to follow Russia's lead in recognising South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries turned particularly sour after the Belarussian leader accused Russia of trying to use a $500 million loan as a bribe to speed up recognition of the Georgian breakaway regions.

His anger was only increased when Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin delivered a speech critical of Belarussian economic prospects on a recent visit to Minsk, prompting Lukashenko to threaten a westward lurch in his foreign policy.

On defence cooperation with Russia, Pravda.ru quoted the controversial leader as saying: "There is not even a soldier to the west of Moscow. What would happen if there were no Belarussian army in that direction?"

He went on to claim that Russia's arms prices meant they expected Belarus to defend the Russia-Belarus union state "with [their] bare hands".

But trade is the key weapon that Moscow wields in this dispute, and the retaliation came from a Russian food safety watchdog, the Federal Consumer Rights Protection Service, which blacklisted a total of 1,300 dairy products.

The service's chief, Russia's hygiene tsar Gennady Onishchenko, highlighted "evident violations" in new technical and registration rules.

And he ridiculed the prospect of negotiation on the issue.

"Rospotrebnadzor is forced to withdraw its previously voiced request for negotiations with Belarus, since some of its officials view the problem as 'far-fetched'. We find it incautious to bother our Belarusian colleagues over far-fetched problems and apologise for the inconvenience," Onishchenko said.

Lukashenko has already slammed Russian "protectionism", claiming existing restrictions on sugar imports represent "a crime against the people", while Belarus's chief sanitary inspector Valentina Kachan was quoted as saying all the appropriate permits had been issued and claiming that the first 500 products affected "are hardly exported to Russia anyway".

With 80 per cent of Belarussian dairy exports heading to Russia each year - netting about $1 billion - the Russian milk ban could see the pressure boil over in Minsk.

However, Peter Duncan, an expert in Russia-Belarus relations at London's School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, believes in the end there will be few tears shed over this spilt milk.

"Lukashenko is just trying to play Russia and Europe against each other, but it won't lead to any long-term shift in relations between Belarus and the EU," he said by telephone. "However much individual nations might prefer geopolitical adv.antage over human rights, that's not a majority position in Europe. So Putin and Medvedev know they can let Lukashenko go hang, because in the end he has to come back to them."

At the same time, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed it was Europe, not Russia, which was linking the Georgian conflict with aid for Belarus.

"European Union officials actually made the refusal to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia a condition for inviting the Republic of Belarus into the Eastern Partnership [programme]," Lavrov said, complaining that Moscow had not heard Minsk react to the statements.

Source:

http://www.mnweekly.ru/news/20090610/55379729.html

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