Grigory Rapota Summarized Results of Union State’s 20-year Work

“In the past and present, and well into the future – problems are endless. As soon as you solve some, new ones are sure to arise. It is a natural process that reflects the dynamics of any living organism’s development,” said Grigory Rapota.

The State Secretary said that they were working up the issue of the frozen Union State budget, which had not changed since 2009. The current situation causes a number of problems regarding the implementation of Union programmes.

There is also a need to expand the list of large-scale projects that would unite both states in joint creative work.

Moreover, issues related to the creation of a single transport, economic and energy space should be dealt with as well.

“I believe that the transport issue is one of the most promising and important ones. You see, our transport structure does not reach the technical level of the 21^st century, which creates lots of problems: economic, scientific, technical and humanitarian ones, strange though it may sound. We must provide better conditions for mutual contacts between Russians and Belarusians,” said Grigory Rapota.

Another equally important point Belarus and Russia are working on is mutual recognition of visas. Presumably, we only have to apply a finishing touch.

“The agreement on mutual recognition of visas is ready. It only needs to be finalized it at the state level. So we are waiting for this moment,” said the State Secretary.

In addition, the issue of communications has not been resolved yet. However, there is some progress in this area.

“So far we have advanced in the general understanding that it should be done. When parliamentarians put forward this idea, the first reaction was more negative than positive. They said that it was difficult, impossible, not necessary, and so on. Now there is an understanding that it is possible and necessary,” said Grigory Rapota.

He specified that the two countries’ ministries of communications were working quite closely with each other in order to resolve this issue.

“Now the question has run into the interests of telecom operators, economic business interests, which is also quite natural. No doubt, business interests must be taken into account. At the moment, attempts are being made to harmonize business interests and the interests of citizens. I think that we should be optimistic about the solution to this issue,” said the State Secretary.

At the same time, Grigory Rapota stressed that despite the abundance of issues the Union State needs to address, one should not forget about the results already obtained. One of the most significant achievements, according to the State Secretary, is the possibility of free movement across the territory of the Union State for the citizens of Russia and Belarus. As well as the possibility to choose a place of residence, place of work or study.

“There are great achievements in the social sphere, including the issues of transferring pensions earned in one state and received in the other. Technical cooperation is very well developed. Indeed, now we can often see the creation of joint ventures on the territory of both states. Belarusian technology is spreading far and wide in Russia. It is an encouraging phenomenon. There are a lot of such achievements, and we can talk about them for a long time,” concluded Grigory Rapota.