Makei, Mezentsev discuss Belarus-Russia interaction as part of Union State

The parties discussed topical issues of Belarus-Russia interaction within the framework of the Union State, the schedule of meetings of the Union State bodies, as well as the work of the Union State Standing Committee.

As BelTA has reported, the integration with Russia in the format of the Union State was discussed at a meeting of the Belarusian president with senior members of the Council of Ministers on 17 August. Aleksandr Lukashenko and the participants of the meeting heard out a report of First Deputy Prime Minister Nikolai Snopkov, who heads the Belarusian delegation at the negotiations with Russia on the integration programs.

According to Nikolai Snopkov, Belarus and Russia have almost completely aligned the integration documents. "For almost three years, at the initiative of our Russian partners, we have been working to deepen the integration as part of the Union State Treaty. After a pause in the winter of 2019, the negotiations resumed in the summer of 2020.

In the process of negotiations, we identified what the primary interests of each side were. For Russians, this is the tax and customs regulation, i.e. transparency, traceability of goods on their territory. For us, these are the terms of cooperation in the energy sector and access to the Russian market. The main difficulty in our negotiations was the aligning of these interests, Nikolai Snopkov said.

As a result, the parties almost completely aligned the package, including the guidelines and 28 Union State sectoral programs and also the draft resolutions on their approval by the Council of Ministers and the Supreme State Council of the Union State.

As Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at the Big Conversation with the President, a meeting with the public, experts and media community in the format of a big press conference in Minsk on 9 August, Belarus and Russia are yet to align one Union State program. The so-called integration roadmaps were reformatted into the Union State programs. There are a total of 28 of them. "If we are the union, if we see a future, we need to equalize prices. Or, let's do it on market terms. Let's say we need gas. So we buy it from Gazprom. Gazprom does not have it? We will go to another company - you have a lot of them that produce natural gas. There should be free trade in this commodity. Then the prices will be appropriate. We do not ask for low prices. We want equal prices," the Belarusian leader stressed.

He recalled that the common economic space that Belarus and Russia are building implies equal conditions for all business entities, enterprises and people. "We agree to market conditions, but the conditions should be equal. We agreed with the Russian president that we will overcome all barriers and equalize these conditions," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.

"I would like to hope that the Supreme State Council of the Union State will convene for a meeting this year, at the end of it, as we agreed with the president [Putin]. The meeting should be a milestone as we are set to make very serious decisions. I think that if Russia does not commit to take some steps with regard to gas prices, to level the playing field, we will still adopt these 28 Union State programs, the roadmaps have been thoroughly revised. It will be a colossal step froward," Aleksandr Lukashenko said.