Heuristic Volker Pabst
I first referred to an encyclopædia to grasp the chronological development of the union building. My next step was to browse the internet for the treaties between the two States. “Rossijskaja gazeta”, Russia’s official gazette, charges money on downloads, so I took the treaties on the web site of the official union newspaper “sojuz-info”. Given the actuality of the question, there are only few books available on the union. In know about one excellent book of a Professor of the St. Petersburg State University, but it was impossible to have it sent here. Thus, I referred to more general works on Russian and especially
Belarusian post-soviet politics, because the union has relatively more weight in Belarusia’s politics than in Russia’s. Since the bibliographies of those books consisted rather of sources, I had to refer to periodicals to find more analytical work. The available databases on the server of HEI/unige proved to be little helpful, but the German language magazine “osteuropa” has published quite a lot of interesting articles on recent developments of the question. Moreover, I found some neutral analyses on the sites of
American foundations and on the NATO web-site. The official homepages of the Union, the Russian and the Belarusian government and the homepages of Russian liberal parties (SPS, yabloko) and the
Belarusian popular front (BNF) gave me an idea of the argumentation of the union’s supporters and adversaries. In order to get an idea of public opinion, I searched Russian newspaper archives for comments on the key events of the union building process. Unfortunately, among the serious Russian media, only “izvestia” provides free access to its archives and the English language “current digest of post-soviet press” was rather useless in this respect. Trying to put the formation of a Union State in the post-soviet area in a context of European integration and security policy, I searched NATO and EU documents for reactions on the union building process.
Chronological overview: Only a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly independent state of Belarus’ started re-tightening its relations to Russia. Although Belarus’ constitution from 1994 stated the country’s neutrality
1
, Aleksandr Lukashenko
2
, who was elected president in the same year, intensified Belarusian integration policy with Russia
3
. In spite of diverging ideas between the Russian
Federation and the Republic of Belarus, of what the two states’ rapprochement should be aiming at and of how power should be distributed in a union to come, a series of treaties on economical and political cooperation was concluded out of strategic and opportunistic considerations
4
. Whereas the agreement on a custom union and the Treaty of Friendship and Co-operation affected only economic co-operation, the
Treaty On the Formation of a Community of Russia and Belarus from the 2 nd
of April 1996 and the
Treaty on a Union between Russia and Belarus exactly one year later, had more political weight.
Lukashenko declared the date to a national holiday
5
, Belarusian nationalist opposition met the event with heavy protest
6
and analysts even called it “the death knell of the young independent state”
7
. The Treaty on the Formation of a Union State from the 8 th
of 1999 marked the peak of Russian Belarusian integration
2

Heuristic Volker Pabst policy. However, with Putin’s nomination to El’tsin’s successor in January 2000 and the re-orientation of
Russia’s foreign policy after September 11 th , the co-operation with Belarus was given less importance. In
August 2002, after years of Belarusian pro union policy and restrained Russian reactions, Putin surprised the public with propositions of concrete steps towards the creation of a real union state.
Belarusian pro and contra: Belarusian interests in a union with Russia are threefold: Political, economical and military. Belarus is the most Russianized of all republics of the former USSR. Shushkevich even questions, if there has ever been a national perception by the belorussian people
8
. Although analysts disagree on whether the people of Belarus do favour only an economic, or also a political integration with
Russia, a pro-Russian policy towards a re-unification with Moscow definitely grants popularity of the government 9 , as the election of Lukashenko shows. Since conservative and anti-western Lukashenko has not re-structured Belarus’ soviet styled economy and has led the country in an increasing isolation from the west, Belarusian economy depends still completely on exports to and imports from Russia 10 . Thus, a close relation with Russia is key for the country‘s survive. In security terms, the expansion to eastern central Europe and to the Baltic states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, that is still widely seen in Russia and Belarus as a hostile alliance, was perceived as a threat to national security of the relatively small country
11 . Opposition towards any kind of union, that could restrict in some respect the country’s sovereignty is organised by nationalist parties like the Belorusskij Narodnyj Front (BNF)
12
, but is heavily restricted by the government. General popular support for an Union with Belarus has fallen due to the
Second Chechen War.
13
Russian pro and contra: Like in Belarus, a reintegration of the post-soviet States, or at least the three east
Slavic tribes, is very popular in Russia among the communists
14
, the orthodox church
15
as among common people. Belarus is one of Russia’s top three trade partners and most of Russia’s exports transit
Belarus
16
. In a geo-strategic perspective, the Union brings evident advantages for Russia: Belarus serves as an outpost, protecting the Russian heartland and its proximity to Kaliningrad links this exclave with the
Russian motherland. Moreover, after the loss of the Baltic territories and the alienation of Ukraine,
Belarus is the ideal place to observe and eventually prevent NATO military actions. The main argument in Russia against an union with Belarus are the high costs Russia would have to face in order to raise the
Belarusian economy to the Russian level. Moreover, in the course of the discussions about the final form of the Union, the governors of the Russian federal subjects feared to lose political weight in the Union, compared to Lukashenko, and the communist party was afraid of losing votes to the Belorusian leader
17
.
Analyse and outlook: Given these common interests in a close relation, institutionalised economic and military co-operation seems evident. Thus, these goals were realised in concrete articles of the different treaties. However, when it came up to a political Union, the perceptions of how this Union should look
3

Heuristic Volker Pabst like, differed. Although the Treaty On the Formation of a Union State from 1999 stated, that both parties should keep their full sovereignty and be partners equal in rights, Russia was never willing to accept
Belarus as an equal partner in an union state
18
. Moreover, the opportunity costs for Russia of an union with Belarus began to grow the more Lukashenko’s policy isolated his country from the outer world and the closer Russia co-operated with NATO and the EU. Many conservative Russian scholars state, that the
EU and especially NATO are firmly hostile to an union of Russia and Belarus
19
. It is true, that western coalitions see Belarus as an independent actor and do not encourage any effort leading to a restoration of the Soviet Union
20
. However official EU documents show, that Europe is rather concerned about the democratic development and the situation of human rights in Belarus and an integration without democratic approbation
21 . Both NATO and EU, don’t consider a Union between the two Slavic states as a general threat to European security, but demand democratic standards. Thus, in the case of a union state,
Belarusian deficits in democracy or market economy are going to be blamed to Russia, too. That’s why
Putin, besides a general re-orientation of Russia’s foreign policy after the 11 th
of September 2001 towards intensified co-operation with the west at the expense of the ‘close abroad’
22
, slows down Russian efforts to form an union state in the course of a further intensification of its co-operation with the western world.
The proposition of the formation of a union State he made on a CIS summit in August 2002, are not to be interpreted as a sudden change of mind of the Russian President 23 . They show in their unacceptability for
Belarus, that Russia is not willing to intensify its relations to a weak, unstable and internationally disrespected partner like Belarus, unless in the form of a complete absorption and integration into the
Russian Federation. Given the costs and benefits of an union for each state, Belarus would profit disproportionally as an equal partner. Thus, Russia will, despite its official rhetoric, reduce, the cooperation on economic and military terms. Given the new geo-strategic realities, Russia can manage without Belarus and will do so, present day Belarus, and the regime of Lukashenko in particular, can’t and won’t survive without Russia. That’s how the latest developments of the union, and its further steps, too, have to be understood.
An analyse of sources, as a work on such an actual topic demands due of its lack of a wide range of analytical work, is time consuming and can’t lead to a satisfactory result within one week’s research.
Thus, I guess I spent too much time on studying texts I finally mention in a footnote at best. Given the actuality of the question, I had problems to analyse the topic from a historic rather than politological perspective. However, I hope I managed to give an insight in Belarusian and Russian motivations to push or to hinder further integration, to show what is at stake for each actor and how the development is perceived internationally.
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Heuristic Volker Pabst
1 MARPLES, Belarus – a denationalized nation , p. 107
2 In my text, I will use the British system of transliteration from cyrillic to latin letters, unless for titles and literal citations, where I will use the system of the author, whose work I cite.
3 MARPLES, op. cit., p. 107. Lukashenko has been elected president to some extent thanks to a campaign, that favoured closer relations to Russia and that denounced the Belavezha agreement of 1991, where the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.
4 LORENZ, „Aufbruch aus der Talsenke? Belarus‘ an der Schwelle zum neuen Jahrhundert“, monitor , p.260: „Tactical political considerations played a role at the signing of the first integration treaty on April 2 nd 1996 (compensation of losses from the first war in Chechnya) as in 1999: [...] almost all the candidates to the parliament (1999) and to the presidency (2000) approved formally an union with Belarus, in order to win communist votes“
5 MARPLES, op. cit., p. 122
6 The Europe World Year Book 2003, p. 692
7 MARPLES, The new union signed by Russia and Belarus
8 BERELOWITCH et RADVANYI, Les 100 portes de la Russie , p. 40: „For him [Shushkevich], the independence is only theoretical. ‚In Belarus’, he says, ‘there is no such thing like renaissance of nationalism, because there has never been nationalism. We rather have a de-russianization and not a belarusianization.’“
9 A 1994 poll in Belarus showed, that 55% of the population were for the restoration of the Soviet Union, and even 63% opted for a Union with Russia
10 Observatoire des Etats postsoviétiques INALCO, Les Etats postsoviétiques , p. 81
11 SZYSZLO, „Countering NATO-Expansion – A Case Study of Belarus-Russia Rapprochement“, Final report of the Nato
Research Fellowship 2001-2003 : „[...] NATO's eastward expansion has led Belarus and Russia to reassess strategic imperatives in their western peripheries, partially stemming from their mutual distrust of the Alliance as a former Cold War adversary“
12 see homepage of the BNF
13 LORENZ, „Aufbruch aus der Talsenke? Belarus‘ an der Schwelle zum neuen Jahrhundert“, osteuropa, p. 262
14 ZIOUGANOV, La Russie après l’an 2000 – vision géopolitique d’un nouvel Etat , p. 140: „In the same time, we need to make great efforts in order to reintegrate pacifically the soviet area by all possible means“ et p. 229: „[...] the second strategic goal [...] is a new union of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.“
15 „“Forces of Hell“ oppose Russia-Belarus Union“, Monitor , citation of Patriarch Aleksy II: „[...] all the forces of Hell are rising up against every attempt to advance toward the [Russia-Belarus] Union“
16 PEROVIĆ, „Probleme der Anpassung an die neuen Realitäten. Russische Außenpolitik gegenüber der Ukraine und
Weißrußland“, monitor , p. 474
17 PEROVIĆ, op. cit., p.476
18 TIMMERMANN, „Der Sonderfall Belarus‘ im Spannungsfeld zwischen Rußland und Europäischer Union“, monitor , p.
1439
19 DAKHIN, „Razvitie SNG v kontekste global´nykh tendentsij mezhdunarodnoj zhizni“,
Problemy global´nykh i regional´nykh integratsionnykh protsessov, p.87: „[...] new and old centres of world politics are straightway not interested in a formation of a Union of several States in the post-soviet area, that would co-ordinate its policy on fundamental political questions”
20 ALLEN and SMITH, „External Policy Development“, The European Union: Annual Review 1999/2000 , p. 142
21 European Parliament Resolution on the Union Treaty of Russia and Belarus
22 The term of „close abroad“ (blizhajshee zarubezh’e) is used in Russia for the successor states of the USSR, without Russia evidently
23 Putin proposed to form a union state in „the proper meaning of the word”, i.e. to integrate a new state under Russian constitution, which would be equal to an absorption of Belarus by Russia. See: TIMMERMANN, op. cit. p. 1439
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Heuristic Volker Pabst
1.
Official documents a) Treaties:
Dogovor o druzhestve, dobrososedstve i sotrudnichestve mezhdu Rossijskoj Federatsiej i Respublikoj
Belarus’ (Treaty on Friendship, Good Neighbourliness and Co-operation between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus’), 21 st
of February 1995, http://www.sinfo.ru (consultation: 12 th
of December
2003)
Dogovor ob obrazovanii soobshchestva Rossii i Belarusi (Treaty On the Formation of a Community of
Russia and Belarus‘), 2 nd
of April 1996, http://www.sinfo.ru (consultation: 12 th
of December 2003)
Dogovor o sojuze Belarusi i Rossii (Treaty on a Union between Russia and Belarus‘), 2 nd
of April 1997, http://www.sinfo.ru (consultation: 12 th
of December 2003)
Ustav k dogovoru o sojuze Belarusi i Rossii (Charter to the Treaty on a Union between Russia and
Belarus‘), 2 nd
of April 1997, http://www.sinfo.ru (consultation: 12 th
of December 2003)
Dogovor o sozdanii sojuznogo gosudarstva (Treaty on the Formation of a Union State) 8 th of December
1999, http://www.sinfo.ru (consultation: 12 th
of December 2003) b) Resolutions:
European Parliament Resolution on the Union Treaty of Russia and Belarus, 10 th
of April 1997, http://www3.europarl.eu.int (consultation: 13 th of December 2003)
European Parliament resolution on relations between the European Union and Belarus: towards a future partnership, 11 th
of February 2003, http://www3.europarl.eu.int (consultation: 13 th
of December 2003) c) Press releases:
Press service of the Russian State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Parlamentarian Assembly of the Union between Russia and
Belarus’, 26 st
of June 2001, htttp://www.mid.ru (consultation: 13 th
of December 2003) d) general references official website of the Russian government: http://www.gov.ru official website of the Belorusian president: http://www.president.gov.by website of Russian liberal parties:
Sojuz pravykh sil:
Yabloko: http://www.sps.ru http://www.yabloko.ru
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Heuristic Volker Pabst website of Belarusian nationalist opposition:
Belarusskij narodnyj front: http://pages.prodigy.net/dr_fission/bpf
2.
Testimonies a) Memories:
ZIOUGANOV, Guennadi, La Russie après l’an 2000 – Vision géopolitique d’un nouvel Etat , Morsangsur-Orge, 1999, Editions Mithec b) Newspapers, Magazines, Radio emissions:
AKOPOV, Pjotr, POPOVA, Svetlana and RATIANI, Natal’ja, Tovarishch, njet, in Izvestia, 14 th of
August 2002, http://www.izvestia.ru (consultation: 13 th
of December 2003)
FADEEV, Vladimir, in Radio Sinfo, 19 th
of August 2002, http://www.sinfo.ru (consultation: 14 th
of
December 2003)
“”Forces of hell” oppose Russia-Belarus Union”,
Monitor , 28 th
of September 1998, http://www.jamestown.org (consultation: 12 th of December 2003)
“Russia-Belarus Union: The military dimension”,
Monitor , 10 th
of December 1999, http://www.jamestown.org (consultation: 12 th of December 2003)
“Russia-Belarus Union finds no takers”,
Monitor , 15 th
of December 1999, http://www.jamestown.org
(consultation: 12 th
of December 2003) c) Contemporary analyses
MARPLES, David R, “The new union signed by Russia and Belarus’”,
The Ukrainian Weekly , 21 st
of
April 1996, http://www.ukrweekly.com (consultation: 12 th
of December 2003)
1.
Encyclopædias and Reference-books
CHIGRINOV, P. G., Ocherki istorii Belarusi , Minsk, 2000, Vyshejshaja shkola
The Europe World Year Book 2003, London, 2003, Europa Publications, Vol. I pp 690-697 (Belarus) and
Vol. II pp 3468-3481 (Russia)
OBSERVATOIRE DES ETATS POSTSOVIETIQUES INALCO, sous la direction de Radvanyi, Jean,
Les Etats postsoviétiques – Identités en construction, transformations politiques, trajectoires
économiques , Paris, 2003, Armand Colin
2.
Scientific Works
BERELOWITCH, Alexis and RADVANYI, Jean, Les 100 portes de la Russie – De l’URSS à la CEI, les convulsions d’un géant
, Paris, 1999, Les Editions de l’Atelier
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Heuristic Volker Pabst
MARPLES, David R., Belarus: a denationalized nation , Singapore, 1999, Harwood Academic Publishers
3.
Scientific Articles and Essays
ALLEN, David and SMITH, Michael, „External Policy Development“,
The European Union: Annual
Review 1999/2000 , Oxford, 2000, Blackwell Publishers
DAKHIN, V. N., „Razvitie SNG v kontekste global´nykh tendentsij mezhdunarodnoj zhizni“,
Problemy global´nykh i regional´nykh integratsionnykh protsessov
, pp 84-91, Moscow, 1996, Izdatel´stvo rossijskoj akademii gosudarstvennoj sluzhby
LORENZ, Astrid, „Aufbruch aus der Talsenke? Belarus’ an der Schwelle zum neuen Jahrhundert”, osteuropa – Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens , N° 3-2000, pp 259-263
MURAVIEV, Alexey, „Russian Military Power at the Turn of the Millenium”, Russia After Yeltsin by
Vladimir Tikhomirov, pp 194-221, Hants, 2001, Ashgate Publishing Company
PEROVIĆ, Jeronim, „Probleme der Anpassung an die neuen Realitäten. Russische Außenpolitik gegenüber der Ukraine und Weißrußland“, osteuropa – Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens
, N°
4/5-2001, pp 466-480
SAHM, Astrid, „Integration, Kooperation oder Isolation? Belarus‘ und die Ukraine im Vorfeld der EU-
Osterweiterung“, osteuropa – Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens , 11/12-2001, pp 1391-1404
SZYSZLO, Peter, „Countering NATO-Expansion – A Case Study of Belarus-Russia Rapprochement“,
Final report of the Nato Research Fellowship 2001-2003 , http://www.nato.int (consultation: 14 th
of
December 2003)
TIMMERMANN, Heinz, „Der Sonderfall Belarus‘ im Spannungsfeld zwischen Rußland und
Europäischer Union“, osteuropa – Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des Ostens , N° 11-2002, pp 1436-
1455
WALTER, Franz, „Rußlands Militärdoktrin 2000“, o steuropa – Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsfragen des
Ostens
, N° 7-2000, pp 779-798
8