Visibility of the Union

Minsk is working on ruble payments

The Presidium of the Belarusian government yesterday approved a draft presidential decree on allowing settlements on the territory of Belarus in non-cash Russian rubles and canceling the mandatory sale of foreign currency earnings in this currency. Moreover, from July 1 next year, judging by the document, payments to the Belarusian budget in Russian rubles are allowed. So far, the draft decree has been approved only at the level of the Council of Ministers and transferred to the presidential administration. Now Alexander Lukashenko must sign it. However, when this will happen and whether it will happen at all is difficult to predict. Moreover, the date for the entry into force of the innovations proposed by the decree has not been announced.

As you know, in recent weeks, when the time came to conclude specific agreements on the transition of the Union of Russia and Belarus to a single currency, Mr. Lukashenko was afraid of Russian money. It all started with the fact that the Belarusian president refused to sign a decree opening up the possibility of introducing payments in non-cash Russian rubles on the territory of Belarus from July 1 of this year. At the same time, he again instructed his economic ministries to further analyze the pros and cons of such a step. Then, immediately after the Russian-Belarusian working group agreed on a draft agreement on the transition to a single currency from January 1, 2005, Mr. Lukashenko said that the Russian ruble threatened the sovereignty of Belarus. Some time later, in response to Vladimir Putin’s proposal not to delay the signing of “unification” documents, the President of Belarus put forward counter-initiatives that, in essence, cast doubt on the possibility of forming a single currency area in the foreseeable future. In particular, Alexander Lukashenko insisted that the constitutional act of the Union of Russia and Belarus be adopted first. “These are just games,” says Vremya Novostey’s source in the Kremlin. - At first we tried to move towards a union by agreeing on constitutional documents. But when they realized that Lukashenko was completely ignoring this movement, they tried to focus on the economy. Now it turns out that this was in vain.” A few days ago, Gazprom entered the process of actively persuading its ally and threatened to stop supplying gas to Belarus at domestic Russian prices. The gas company’s determination was supported by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov (see Vremya Novostey, September 8) .

The pressure apparently had success. Since the beginning of this week, the issue of a single currency has been actively discussed by the Belarusian government, but practically no information has been provided to the press. And yesterday there were reports that the Council of Ministers had approved the draft of a new decree of Mr. Lukashenko. According to some analysts, it is likely that by reporting on the hardware procedure (as a rule, such operational issues remain behind the scenes), the Belarusian authorities are trying to appease Moscow, show that Belarus continues to follow the course of unifying currencies, and thereby save themselves from drastic measures from Russia. In the end, Minsk clearly does not want to lose cheap gas, which Alexander Lukashenko once sought with all his might. It can be assumed that the situation will become clearer after the meeting between Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin. Perhaps it will take place before the summit of the CIS heads in Yalta, which will take place on September 19.

Natalya VIKTOROVA, Minsk, Ivan GORDEEV