Gas pressure

Lukashenko meets with Putin

Today Vladimir Putin will meet with Alexander Lukashenko in the Kremlin. “During the meeting, current issues of bilateral cooperation will be discussed,” the press service of the Belarusian president reported. The Kremlin explained that Mr. Lukashenko will arrive at the invitation of the Russian president. Apparently, such an invitation is a manifestation of the “carrot” policy after several months of using the “stick”. It is obvious that the two presidents need to solve problems in the gas sector and discuss preparations for the CIS summit, which, according to Vremya Novostei, will take place in Minsk on November 28.

“This will be a difficult meeting with difficult to predict results. But we can expect that the Belarusian side will bargain less at the negotiations than the Russian side,” says Belarusian sociologist Oleg Manaev. The other day, Russian Ambassador to Belarus Alexander Surikov made a number of statements indicating Moscow’s tough position on energy supplies. The implementation of these plans could seriously affect the state of the Belarusian economy, the success of which in recent years was attributed by experts to the increase in revenues from the sale of petroleum products made from Russian oil to Europe. And the expected increase in Russian gas prices from 46.68 to 200 dollars per thousand cubic meters starting in the new year will further complicate the situation.

Knowing about Russia’s intentions to switch to market principles of cooperation in the energy sector, the Belarusian leadership began searching for new partners. In recent months, negotiations on cooperation in the oil sector have been conducted with Venezuela and Iran. But the issues of gas supplies cannot be resolved anywhere except Moscow. On Wednesday, the head of Beltransgaz, Dmitry Kazakov, already came to Gazprom ( see Issue 206 of November 9 ) , and his negotiations with Alexey Miller did not lead to a rapprochement of positions. “It is unlikely that one can expect concessions from Minsk that will lead to a weakening of the Belarusian government, so agreement to create a monetary union in the near future is unlikely. But a shift in negotiations on the privatization of Beltransgaz with the participation of Gazprom is quite possible,” says Oleg Manaev.

Anna NAUMOVA, Olga TOMASHEVSKAYA, Minsk