Union of Russia and Belarus

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Map of the Union of Russia and Belarus.

The Union of Russia and Belarus (Russian: Союз России и Белоруссии - Soyuz Rossii i Byelorussii), also known as the United State of Russia and Belarus (Russian: Союзное государство России и Белоруссии - Soyuznoye gosudarstvo Rossii i Belorussii), is a supranational confederal entity consisting of Russia and Belarus.

1 Creation
2 Institutions and legal framework
3 Developments
4 Common currency
5 See also
6 References

[edit] Creation

Originally, the Community of Russia and Belarus was formed on April 2, 1996. The basis of the union was strengthened on April 2, 1997, at which time its name was changed to Union of Russia and Belarus. On December 25, 1998, with the signature of several agreements intending to provide greater political, economic, and social integration, the union was strengthened further. In reality, however, the Union may be considered as a confederation.

The creation of the Union was initiated by the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, in order to harmonise the political and economic differences between the two nations. In 1994, a similar proposal by the president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was put forward with the intention of founding of a confederal Eurasian Union. However, this was never adopted.

In 1999 the then-president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević, declared his wish to join the Union as an observing member.

The United State of Belarus and Russia's Treaty of Creation was signed on December 8, 1999. The intention was to eventually achieve a federation like the USSR with a common president, parliament, flag, coat of arms, anthem, constitution, army, citizenship, currency etc.

[edit] Institutions and legal framework

The Treaty on the Formation of a Union State has established the following institutions:

A Supreme State Council, made up of the Presidents, Prime Ministers, and the heads of both chambers of the Parliaments of both countries.
A Council of Ministers
A Permanent Committee
A bicameral Union Parliament, comprised of an elected House of Representatives, which contains 75 deputies from Russia and 28 from Belarus, and a House of the Union with an equal number of deputies from each nation, appointed by the executive branch.
A Supreme Court of Justice
An Accounting Chamber, controlling the implementation of the budget.

Pavel Borodin, who is suspected of fraud, embezzlement and other financial crimes and who was arrested in the United States [1], is the current state secretary of the Union. He was first appointed by the Supreme State Council on January 26, 2000 for a four-year term. In 2004, his term was renewed for another four years.

[edit] Developments

Both member states seem to have lost their initial enthusiasm for the union, with first Russia, and then Belarus, restoring customs controls along their common border in 2001, effectively ending the customs union. Plans had also been set in motion to implement a common currency across the union, but these have been postponed several times. Furthermore, a long-awaited agreement on a draft constitution, which according to Belarus' President Lukashenko, the Russian government seeks to model on the European Union, could be put to a vote in both countries in 2006. This is contrary to the wishes of the Belarussian administration, which would prefer that the union resemble that of the former Soviet Union.

Belarus and Russia had been collecting the Value Added Tax (VAT) in the country of origin, but from January 1, 2005 VAT is collected in the country of destination, as in most other independent countries of the world. This change gave rise to a considerable degree of confusion and has disrupted many trade operations between Belarus and Russia.

On February 10, 2005 almost all (an estimated 85%-90%) private entrepreneurs in Belarus staged a one-day warning strike, protesting the new VAT scheme between the two countries and Lukashenko's economic policies.

On December 15, 2006, talks were heating up over the unionization of the two states.^[1] In January 2007, talks appeared to be stalled, as Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko stated: "The Russian leadership is demanding that we join the Russian Federation - that's what is in the heads of the Russian leadership. I don't want to bury the sovereignty and independence of [Belarus]." He added: "From all the consultations and discussions, I have understood that we have different approaches and understandings of the building of a union state", and opposed "the possibility of the [Belarus'] incorporation into Russia". ^[2]

[edit] Common currency

Initially, Lukashenko promised to introduce a common currency on January 1, 2004. The currency was not introduced, and the plan pushed back by one year. On January 1, 2005 the "union state" again failed to introduce common currency, and it was again postponed by one year, which, in 2006, happened again. During a press-conference in Minsk on February 2, 2006, Pyotr Prokopovich, chief of the National Bank of Belarus, announced that a "common currency might be introduced in 2007."