Nationwide Discussion

Russian and Belarusian official periodicals carried a draft agreement on the Union State of Russia and Belarus. The text was published after a scandal caused by the Belarusian President, who was loath to see it in print. Russian analysts explained this attitude simply: the document does not stipulate a Union presidency, something the ambitious “father of the Belarusian people” has coveted for several years. Yet the problem is not so much ambitions as that Moscow has done its utmost to spend nothing on the integration idea, so as to make the union state as ambiguous and fictitious a project as all the previous Russian-Belarusian formations. Lukashenka, of course, does not like this. Being at the head of an impoverished state, he needs power in a neighboring one or at least money to sustain the marginal Belarusian nomenklatura, if only temporarily

Moscow is feeding Lukashenka with paper. He takes offense the way the Russian elite would feel if the West refused Russia loans. Reforms need money and you are feeding us documents. Lukashenka's position is: we are uniting, aren't we? I need the dough. So what are you giving me instead? Yes, a similar situation, except that Moscow can hardly be compared to any Western creditor. The Russians have too many problems of their own.

And so the unions state draft passed unnoticed. No nationwide discussion has even started, except for a couple of Moscow television public affairs programs showing Belarusian misery and how people could not care less about uniting with Russia. Maybe some would like to go back to the Soviet Union, but not set up any new union state.

In other words, taking part in this “nationwide discussion” will be the two presidents and those of the political elite unable to make a career other than by talking about integration, like Russian Duma Deputy Nikolai Gonchar. After the document was published Lukashenka was quoted as saying that he did not like the document, and Gonchar was quoted as saying he agreed with Lukashenka. What does this mean? Nothing. All that really counts is that no one cares. Russia and Belarus may talk all they want about getting united, compose documents, go through the motions of discussing them, introduce amendments, and even pass top-level decisions. It will all come to nothing. No one will unite simply because nobody needs to.