Российско-белорусская интеграция и общественное мнение

Abstract

The article investigates one of the most topical issues of contemporary international processes between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus, currently evolving within the framework of the Treaty on the Union State and the Action Programme of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation on the implementation of the Treaty. The author considers the main factors determining the intensification of the integrational processes in 1999, the period, which is different in quality from the preceding stages of bilateral integration. The article gives priority in its analysis to the geopolitical situation, new both for Belarus and for Russia, which took shape after the extension of NATO to the east in April 1999 and the official nomination of a number of countries of Central and Eastern Europe for accession to the European Union. The author notes that the Treaty on the Union State, implying strategic partnership of Russia and Belarus, is "the only and the main answer to the enlargement of NATO". The author also investigates a qualitatively new domestic political situation in Russia and Belarus, conditioned by the election campaign to the Russian Duma, in the process of which, all Russian political forces came to the same "opinion of the necessity of further closer integration of our states". The new economic situation, requiring valid economic cooperation between the two states, also promoted signing the Treaty on the Union State, according to which the gradual adoption of a single currency unit and the implementation of united policy in price formation and securities market are envisaged. The article considers the prospects of the development of cooperation within the CIS framework, assessing, whether signing the Treaty on the Union State would promote integrational processes in the CIS of vica versa would enhance the disintegrational processes within the latter organisation. The author deems important the issue of whether the rapidintegration of Russia and Belarus would involve a possible distancing from Europe and European organisations or, conversely, would make for integration of both countries into European structures. Problems are identified and some predictions are made as to the collaboration of the Republic of Belarus with European organisations, in particular, with the European Union. Belarusian and Russian politicians' opinions are cited concerning the problems of the interaction of Russia and Belarus with European structures and concerning various aspects of signing of the Treaty on the Union State (retaining the statehood and the sovereignty of Belarus and Russia, the degree to which the provisions of the Treaty correspond to the constitution of Russia, the immediate necessity, and the degree of it, of deep political integration as an instrument of economic advantages and the public opinion impact on the nature and rate of Russian-Belarusian integration).