The Russian government has briefly described 28 agreements between Belarus and Russia. According to the information, there is no agreement on anything specific yet, just agreements to agree on something in the future.
On September 10th, Minsk hosted the session of the Council of Ministers of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, which approved the guidelines for provisions of the Union State Treaty for 2021-23 and 28 Union Programs for integration, which were agreed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin the day before. The prime ministers of Belarus and Russia signed a relevant document.
The Russian government has published a description of these programs. It shows that the parties have agreed to “synchronize” and “harmonize” the laws and points of contact in the future, enter into new agreements, develop new programs and tariffs, “coordinate” pricing.
But nothing concrete has been adopted yet: there is no agreement on, for example, the price of gas or oil, and there is no termination date for roaming cancellation. Some clauses indicate the dates by which the parties will agree.
The agreements of intent are as follows:
- Macroeconomic policy approximation.
- Harmonization of monetary policy and macroprudential regulation.
- Harmonization of foreign exchange regulation and foreign exchange controls.
- Harmonization of information security requirements in the financial sphere.
- Harmonization of regulation norms of financial organizations and the financial market, including ensuring the creation of uniform principles of deposit insurance.
- Harmonization of requirements in the area of combating money laundering and financial terrorism.
- Integration of payment systems in the field of national payment card systems, financial messaging and settlement systems, implementation of ISO 20022 international standard for financial messaging, rapid payment system, harmonized approaches in supervision and monitoring of payment systems.
- Harmonization of requirements in protecting the rights of consumers of financial services and investors and preventing unfair practices on the financial market.
- Integration of information systems of state supervisory bodies in commodities supervision.
- Integration of information systems in the labeling of goods.
- Harmonization of tax and customs legislation and customs cooperation.
- Integration of information systems of state controlling bodies in veterinary and quarantine phytosanitary control.
- Integration of transport control information systems.
- Unification of transport market regulation.
- Formation of the unified gas market.
- Formation of the unified oil and petroleum markets.
- Formation of the unified electricity market.
- Unification of legislation on the operation of nuclear power facilities.
- Formation of a unified agricultural policy.
- Formation of a unified industrial policy.
- Introduction of unified rules of access to public order and public procurement.
- Uniform rules on consumer protection.
- Common competition rules.
- Unification of requirements for organization and implementation of trade activities.
- Formation of the unified principles of a single market of communications and informatization, abolition of roaming.
- Unification of regulation for accounting and financial reporting.
- Unification of legislation in tourism activities.
- Coordinated policy in the social and labor sphere.
Officials say no threat to sovereignty
“Of course, we need to form a common space on the principles of openness, transparency and mutual trust, the rules that take into account the interests and needs of citizens and businessmen, of course, while fully preserving the sovereignty of our states,” Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said, reports “Interfax.”
His Belarusian colleague Raman Halouchanka, prime minister of Lukashenka’s government, also spoke about sovereignty:
“In fact, the governments of the two countries have analyzed the provisions of the Treaty on the creation of the “Union State.” On this basis, a new list of tasks for the further development of relations has been formed with the unconditional preservation of political and economic sovereignty. This is an answer to those who are engaged in political speculation on the topic of integration within the Union State.”
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov assured that the integration will “continue in the form that will best meet the two countries’ interests.”
There is no talk of a single currency yet, he added, and the issue of Russia’s recognition of the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea has not been discussed.
