On the Belarusian Fly and the Russian Cutlet.
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 2009 was a day marked with exuberant celebrations across the globe by the "progressive public". This was in striking contrast to the tenth anniversary of the Russia-Belarus Union State, which falls on December 8 - and, incidentally, is something the world's "progressive public" and its Russian contingent are unlikely to notice.
As it painfully limps towards its jubilee, the Union State is stuck in a deep crisis. Relations between Moscow and Minsk are plagued with growing irritation, mistrust and alienation. Russian politicians and media are talking more and more often about the collapse of Belarus-Russia integration and make no secret of their disdain for Minsk's drift towards the European Union, nervously watching as the smiling eurocrats who've become frequent visitors to Belarus shake hands with "Europe's last dictator".
This reaction is only natural, and indeed quite understandable, since many members of Russia's political elite were up until recently highly confident that the Belarusians, surrounded by the European Union and an unfriendly Ukraine from the north, the west and the south, "have no other options". With this simplistic view, Moscow probably had no need to forge ahead with Russia-Belarus integration. Yet, political expediency still called for it. While Minsk initially took the integration issue seriously, Moscow simply used it as an electoral gimmick. After all, in the turbulent 1990s, the idea of integration could secure a lot of votes in Russia. As soon as some really serious move was contemplated, however, such as allowing Lukashenko to be involved in Russian politics, the Kremlin backtracked without a second thought.
The sad saga of Russian-Belarusian integration has already had several dramatic twists. The biggest and most disastrous fly in the ointment of the Union State was the casual suggestion made by then Russian President Vladimir Putin that all six Belarusian regions - Vitebsk, Mogilev, Gomel, Minsk, Grodno and Brest - become part of Russia. That meant complete annexation, the total liquidation of the Belarusian state, which would have made Belarusian regions constituent entities of the Russian Federation. This new Russian integration initiative made even most pro-Russian Belarusians stop in their tracks at the realisation that such a suggestion really was a bit over the top.
Among pro-Russian Belarusians, who make up the majority of the population in Belarus, Mr Putin's initiative sparked a reaction ranging from puzzlement to open indignation, but to the nationalists from the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), it was a gift from above. The Kremlin's proposal fit in perfectly with nationalist propaganda in Belarus, which had long and unsuccessfully tried to mold Belarusian public opinion based on the belief that Russia was inherently aggressive, savage and backward, and that it was absolutely vital to become reoriented towards Europe. Nationalist propaganda used to have an incredibly small following in Belarusian society, but Mr Putin's initiative paved the way for a more sympathetic response to the BPF's ideas.
The Kremlin's blunder in relations with Belarus, a major blunder that delivered a knockout blow to the very idea of integration in the post-Soviet space has not been corrected. In fact, it has only been aggravated by the fierce gas, oil and milk wars.
Worse yet, the behaviour of high-ranking Russian bureaucrats dealing with Belarus leads to the sad conclusion that the Kremlin is really only interested in energy, and not Russian-Belarusian relations. The public behaviour of Mr Surikov, Russian Ambassador to Belarus, who only talks about oil and gas prices at his press conferences, sends the message that the official is not in fact a high-ranking diplomat, but Gazprom's press secretary in Minsk.
To all appearances, all of this combined serves as the content of the process initiated by Mr Putin in relations with Belarus called, "separating flies from cutlets". The process is sure starting to reap some fruits. Opinion polls in Belarus reveal that the number of Belarusians who would like to see their country join the EU is growing, whereas the number of those in favour of unification with Russia is steadily falling. Incidentally, European and American diplomats working in Eastern Europe have been saying privately that in terms of the quality of infrastructure and social and economic development, Belarus is much more qualified to join the European Union than Ukraine, which has been trying to join in vain for some time now, as well as some East European countries that are already members of the EU. According to the diplomats, the only real obstacle to integration into the EU is the current political regime in Minsk.
Kirill Shevchenko, Doctor of History, Russian Education Centre in Prague