Lukashenka: Next meeting with Medvedev will be remarkable
- 30.10.2008, 13:07
At the consultations on the issues of foreign and home policy Alyaksandr Lukashenka told what the next session of the Supreme state council of the “union state” which is to take place in November-December this year would look like. To his mind, it would be “a special state council”.
Lukashenka thinks that at the session of the Supreme state council of the “union state” of Belarus and Russia in the end of November the most important and key issues of the bilateral relations should be considered.
“In the end of November we have to hold the Supreme state council, it will be a special State council. Being Chairman of the Supreme State Council I will do my best to put the issues most essential for our relations with Russia on the agenda. If not, we will not hold the session of the Supreme State Council at all,” A. Lukasenka stated.
The Belarusian ruler added that “a great attention should be paid to those issues that play a most significant role in the relations between our states. There are many issues of this kind”.
As said by him, “in the future our relations, especially with the Russian Federation, which are based on our contacts in the framework of the CIS, EurAsEc, the union state, on ties between our ministries, should be more well-thought-out and organized”. He noted that he is set to inform other participants of the talks on the meeting with the Russian president D. Medvedev which took place on October 25 in Moscow.
“That is why the first issue of the session would be the results of the meeting from the point of view of agreements. We should act in this way in the relations with the Russian Federation in the future,” A. Lukashenka said.
As the Charter’97 press-centre has informed already, after the meeting of Lukashenka and Medvedev on October 25 experts stated that in connection with postponement of the session of the Supreme council (on November 3), the two leaders probably hadn’t proceeded on key issues of the “union construction”. As we have informed, these issues include single currency and the constitutional act which is to form the architecture of the future merger. “Union construction” stumbled at the problem of equality of the union’s subjects. Minks is ready for integration, but on equal terms only, while Moscow reminds about different sizes of the national economies.
Previously, basing on the words of Russian officials about progress in issues of single currency, experts supposed that in the conditions of the world crisis Belarus had became more manageable, and is ready to sacrifice some elements of independence to save the national economy.
On October 25 at the meeting with Medvedev Lukashenka reminded about Belarus’ dependence on Russian economy and consequently about the desire to know which actions the ally state plans to do in this situation. “We are to discuss a number of current problems the economy faces, as well as finances of Russia and Belarus. Your vision is very important for us, as we are interrelated with Russia in the aspect of economy and financial system. You know that almost half of Belarus’ gold and currency reserves is in Russian rubles,” Lukashenka confessed.
It is obvious that most of all Lukashenka was concerned by the question at what price the Russian gas would be sold. In the present situation the cost of $200 per thousand cubic metres as compared to today’s $129 would be not even critical, but catastrophic for Belarus, experts note. However, the heads of the states haven’t found agreement on the gas price during the meeting.