Lukashenka and Medvedev won’t discuss constitutional act and “common currency”
- 3.02.2009, 8:36
Lukashenka and Medvedev are meeting in the Russian capital today. According to information of mass media, the parties failed to agree upon the agenda of the “state council”, which was postponed since last November.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka flew to Moscow yesterday evening, and spent the night in Moscow.
According to Kommersant daily, the agenda of the session of the supreme state council of the Russian-Belarusian “union” was being prepared far into the night by the Ministry of Foreign Affaires of Russia and the office of Pavel Borodin, state secretary of the “union state”. Officials said the session would be held but refused to speak about a programme of the negotiations.
However, as Radio Svaboda has learnt from Pavel Lyohki, head of Lukashenka’s press service, the constitutional act of the so called union state and “common currency” didn’t appear on the agenda.
“I know for sure that the agenda has been agreed upon. We have reached mutual understanding on it. Issue on mutual trading as well as joint anti-crisis activities and issues on development of relations in financial and credit sector will be discussed,” Lyohki said.
Sergei Prikhodko, Russian president’s aide, has said today that Russia and Belarus are going to sign an agreement on the creation of an integrated regional air-defense system.
“State council” that was always postponed
Holding of a session of the state council was in doubt until the last moment. The session was to be held on November 3, but was postponed till December 1 without giving reasons. But Dmitry Medvedev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka didn’t meet. Lukashenka visited Russia in late December to discuss some disputable issues; prime minister of Belarus Syarhei Sidorski arrived in Moscow last Friday to talk with his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin. After the meeting, they said the session would take place on February 3, but didn’t say about the details of the agenda.
It is clear now that crisis has made significant changes in the agenda of the session of the state council of the union state. If it was only one item on the agenda in November, now, as Kommersant daily has learnt from its sources in the Russian government, an item on anti-crisis activities has become one of the main ones. Here the case is in Russian loans to Belarus. It should be reminded that Moscow granted $2 billion to Minsk and a half of this sum was transferred on November 18. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin told Syarhei Sidorski the rest of the sum would be transferred in February.
But financial appetites of Minsk #go beyond. Lukashenka asked Dmitry Medvedev at the meeting in December to grant 100-billion-ruble loan to Belarus to create the ruble reserve and transmission to payments in rubles in bilateral trading. But on January 24, deputy minister of finance Dmitry Pankin, responsible for foreign cooperation, said an issue on giving 100 billion rubles hadn’t been discussed. A newspaper’s source in the Ministry of Finance said a loan in rubles had been considered, but Moscow had denied that idea. “The loan won’t help Belarus to improve the balance of payment, they will need resources to improve it without structural reforming of the economy,” the source said. “Belarus’s debt to Russia is $2.7 billion.”
Shortly before the session of the state council, Moscow and Minsk managed to solve a key question of all negotiations held in the end of the year, ¬– a gas issue. Beltransgaz and Gazprom signed an additional agreement on prices of Russian gas in 2009. Gas price is still unknown.
It should be noticed that Gazprom wanted to gain control over Beltransgaz as one of the conditions, upon which acceptable for Minsk gas prices could be preserved. By 2010, Gazprom’s stake will have grown up to 50 per cent, so, even one share will be enough to solve this matter. It may turn out today whether it will receive this share.