Andrey Piontkovsky: Union-State Game Over :: Charter'97 :: News

The events in Moscow when , actually on the New Year eve the bilateral agreements resulting in the more than double price raise for gas deliveries from Russia to Belarus were signed in Gazprom have been the prime news for the mass media worldwide for already a fortnight. Among those who have paid special attention to the actions are not only European ,Russian and Belarusian news channels. The American press has also closely followed the situation.

It was Andrey Piontkovsky, a well-known Russian political scientist, who was asked by the Russian service of the Voice of America about the new emphasis in the bilateral relations resulting from the new stage of the gas battle between Minsk and Moscow .

“It seems to me that this New Year deal has put and end to the lengthy ten year “union-making farce” between Russia and Belarus”- he replied. –Actually, Lukashenko is a unique politician in the post-Soviet space. He created a peculiar business: I am selling to Moscow a promise to marry it and Moscow, in its turn, is subsidizing my non-efficient economy. He had succeeded in that for quite a long time, but ,finally, Moscow got fed up and started responding very toughly, making him enter the Russian Federation, that is, stop bluffing but continue the union-state game seriously.”

“As far as it is known to me ,-says Piontkovsky,- the Kremlin’s politics during the last half –a- year was aimed at making Lukashenko with a “gas gun” at his temple refuse the idea of Belarus independence . They failed .He didn’t give up. But the outcome is very questionable : what did he really stand for , for the sovereignty of Belarus or for his own ambitions? What really matters is the result.”

Piontkovsky’s answer to the question on how the last events will affect the future of the so-called “union state” was as follows:” Most fundamentally, Lukashenko did understand that he would not be paid for his promises any more, and Putin did understand that Belarus was not going to enter the Russian Federation. For this reason “the uniion-state” game becomes senseless for both of them.”

“I’ll dare to do the thing which the experts are not recommended to do at the beginning of the year,- the Russian political scientist continued,- I’ll say that, first of all, this year no referendum on the common constitution will happen . And ,most of all, in this transition year Moscow will pursue no “active actions “( there is such a specific term for the people in power) towards Belarus but it will be watching how a serious crises unavoidable under the new economic conditions will be developing in Belarus. Because Lukashenko’s soviet economy , in general, with all its remarkable achievements was based on one condition: low prices for energy.”

It seems that the forecasts of the expert are coming true and the energy conflict between Russia and Belarus is developing. Minsk has introduced custom’s duties on the Russian oil transported through Belarus to Western Europe. As Sergey Sidorsky ,the Prime-Minister of Belarus declares, since the 1st of January the duty amounting to 45 dollars for a ton was introduced . Evidently, it was Minsk’s response to Russia’s doubling of the gas price .

The Russian power circles declared that this step on the Balarusian side contradicted the applicable bilateral agreements. It is also to be mentioned that on the New Year eve Russia introduced export duties on crude oil, delivered to Belarus itself. Moscow justified its actions by the fact that Belarus was buying the maximum possible amount of oil on favorable conditions, processed it and then resold it to Europe on market prices. As we see, the economic conflict between Moscow and Minsk is becoming more acute.