Lukashenka Wants to Gain From Border With Russia :: Charter'97 :: News

In a few days a regular border between Belarus and Russia can appear – it is envisaged by amendments to the decree of Belarusian president in force from January of the last year. The document has all required visas already, and only a signature of the president is needed. The assumed time of amendments’ joining into force in March, 1. “A huge strategic potential of by no means friendly quality is concentrated along Belarus’ borders,” Lukashenka declared on Monday at a solemn reception in honor of the Homeland Defendant Day. The intentional ambiguity of expression was not an accidental one. If in he West, according to the president’s thought, enlargement of the NATO is the danger, in the “Eastern front” the problems are of an economical character. And not only gas is the issue.

“The question of a probable customs border is a higher-order issue than this entire gas scandal,” said chairman of the Belarusian Union of Entrepreneurs Alyaksandar Patupa told the Izvestiya. The project of the decree cancels the clause that the goods from third countries imported from the territory of Russia are not liable to customs registration.

The planned innovations are to “result in considerable changes in routine of work of a wide circle of individual entrepreneurs; and taking into account a large share of goods brought in through Russian border, a considerable restructuring of many markets is to take place” – states the Belarusian Entrepreneurs’ Union in its letter to the vice prime minister of the Belarusian government Andei Kabyakow and to the head of Presidential Administration Ural Latypaw. Businessmen are also concerned that the new border could cause “substantial price increase, deficiency of certain goods, large losses in the number of registered small entrepreneurs and decrease of working places in this system, as well as development of criminal tendencies in regions bordering on Russia”.