Moscow must legally limit Minsk’s “wish lists”
Foreign Minister of Belarus Vladimir Makei, who today showered compliments on the United States in an interview with RBC and gave skeptical assessments of the Union State, is known for his pro-Western position, which does not correspond to the real interests of the country.
The chairman of the Belarusian movement “Civil Harmony” Artem Agafonov told PolitNavigator about this.
“He would like to pivot towards the West, but this would be a disaster for the Belarusian economy. And Russia has now become much more pragmatic in its relations with Minsk. Therefore, a reversal is not expected. They will try to delay, talk about the integration process, force a conversation about some road maps that will take a long time to be agreed upon. Whether Russia will agree to this is a big question,” Agafonov said.
He believes that if Russia is ready to compensate Belarus for the so-called “tax maneuver,” it must necessarily include Minsk’s reciprocal concessions in the documents being prepared.
“The situation around the tax maneuver is reminiscent of the famous phrase from the novel by Ilf and Petrov “Money in the morning, chairs in the evening.” Then the issue is resolved simply: you need to agree on “money” and “chairs” in one document. I don't see any legal problems why not do this.
This is the old traditional position of official Minsk. We always want to receive as many preferences as possible from the Union State and other integration projects, but at the same time we ourselves are reluctant to make any concessions and include integration mechanisms in which something needs to be given. The closer the date of signing integration documents, the more such rhetoric there will be,” our interlocutor noted.
At the same time, he is perplexed about Belarus’ refusal to create supranational bodies in the Union State, which Makei said in an interview.
“If we talk about a single economic space, then the creation of such supranational coordination control structures is inevitable, because the functioning of a single space implies common rules, and they are common central common bodies that will monitor compliance with these rules. Therefore, in this case, Makei is wrong,” Agafonov said.
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