Tensions in Belarus following flawed elections have cast light on the country's
strange relationship with neighboring Russia.
Officially, they're part of what's known as the Union State.
But what exactly is this?
In this video, I'm going to explore what the Union State of Russia and Belarus means in real terms.
Is it a blueprint for a merger into a single country? A loose confederation of two sovereign states?
Or merely some sort of organization?
[MUSIC]
Hello. My name is James Ker-Lindsay.
Welcome to Independent Thinking.
A channel dedicated to international relations, statehood, independence and the origins of countries.
We have a tendency to think of countries in relatively simple terms.
Although we know that they may come in various constitutional forms - such as unitary state
or a federation - on the whole we nevertheless think of them as distinct entities on the international stage.
However, in truth the situation can be far more complex than that.
In some cases, countries can form confederations.
This allows the partners to essentially exist as separate countries, but share certain functions.
Moreover, states can, and increasingly are, coming together in new ways that blur the lines between fully
independent sovereign statehood and political communities where they pool their sovereignties.
The European Union is one such case.
But there are others that seem to fall into this gray zone.
One of the most interesting examples is the Union State between Russia and Belarus.
This arrangement came to the centre of international attention when, in August 2020,
Belarus held flawed elections that saw the incumbent president, Alexander Lukashenko, supposedly returned
to office with 80 percent of the vote.
This, in turn, has led to mass protests throughout the country.
Facing the possibility of overthrow, the administration has looked to neighbouring Russia
- its partner in the Union State - for support.
But what exactly is this Union State?
By way of background, Belarus lies in eastern Europe and shares borders with Russia to its east,
Ukraine to its south, and Poland, Latvia and Lithuania to its west and north.
At 207,000 square kilometers, or 80,000 square miles, it's the 84th largest of the UN's 193 member states.
Its population stands at about 9.5 million.
This stands in marked contrast to Russia.
Neighbouring 14 countries, and at 17 million square kilometres or 6.5 million square miles,
Russia is by far the largest country in the world - almost twice the size of the second largest, Canada.
Moreover, its population stands at approximately 145 million.
The story really begins in the last quarter of the 18th century, when the territory of modern Belarus
came under Russian rule.
Although the area was occupied by Germany during the First World War,
on the 1 January 1919, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed.
And, in 1922, Byelorussia became one of the four founding republics of the Soviet Union
- alongside Russia Ukraine and Transcaucasia.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991,
Byelorussia and Russia went on to become wholly independent countries.
Nevertheless, they retained close ties.
Quite apart from their shared history and heritage, there was also a very practical dimension to the relationship.
Although Belarus, like other parts of the Soviet Union,
embarked on a series of market reforms in the early 1990s, this process was reversed when, in 1994,
Alexander Lukashenko, a former director of a state farm, was elected as first president of the country.
Aiming to retain the command economy of the Soviet era, he needed close ties to neighbouring Russia
- the country's main commercial market.
It was these cultural and economic ties that paved the way for the Union State.
But this came about through a series of steps.
The first of these occurred on 2 April 1996, when the Commonwealth of Russia and Belarus was established.
Exactly one year later, on 2 April 1997, the two countries then signed a treaty establishing a union.
18 months later, in December 1998, they then signed a series of further agreements
that increased their integration across a range of areas.
Finally, on 8 December 1999, they signed the Treaty on the Creation of a Union State
between Russia and Belarus.
According to Article 1 of the Treaty,
The Russian Federation and Republic of Belarus shall establish a Union State which will mark a new stage in
the process of unification of the peoples of the two countries into a democratic state ruled by law.
To do this, the Treaty envisaged the creation of a single economic space,
the pursuit of a coordinated foreign and defence policy, as well as a single legal system
and a coordinated social policy.
It also envisaged the establishment of a number of joint institutions.
These included the Supreme State Council, which would be the main decision-making body
and would require agreement from both states for any decision.
In addition, there'd be a Council of Ministers, which would include the prime ministers, the foreign ministers
and the ministers of economy and finance of the two countries.
In addition, a parliament would be established, as would a court and an accounting body.
Also, the option of establishing a single membership of international organizations, such as the United Nations,
was also left open.
So, the idea behind the Union State was clearly to establish a single country of some sort or another,
whether as a unitary state, a federation or maybe a confederation.
But what did it come to mean in real terms?
One thing can be said for certain: despite the obvious expectations that the two countries
would formally unite, this never in fact happened.
While parts of the union were implemented - for example, there is a State Secretary of the Union -
other parts of the Union State, such as the parliament and court, have never been put into action.
This begs the question of why things didn't go further?
The most widely held explanation is that it was stopped by Lukashenko.
At the time the agreements were signed, Russia was ruled by Boris Yeltsin.
Given that it was clear that he would not be able to last indefinitely, there was a sense that Lukashenko
saw himself as the potential leader of the new union.
However, this ambition was thwarted when Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned on 31 December 1999
and named Vladimir Putin as his successor.
As Putin gained in power, and it became obvious that he wouldn't relinquish control over Russia,
Lukashenko moved away from the idea of integration.
On top of this personal dimension, Russia's growing strength under Putin also seemed to scare Belarus.
The idea of a union of equals, as unrealistic as it was even under Yeltsin, when Russia was relatively weak,
became increasingly impossible to envisage as Moscow reasserted itself.
Indeed, in 2007, Lukashenko even accused Russia of seeking to absorb Belarus,
rather than pursue an equal partnership.
All this seems to explain why the Union State didn't even develop into a loose confederation.
While Belarus had no choice but to remain close to Russia, which still represented a key economic partner
and also provided cheap energy to the country, Lukashenko in fact now began to chart a clearly
independent path for the country in the years that followed.
This even included cultivating ties with the European Union and the United States
- sometime to the direct detriment of the stated principles of the Union State.
For instance, the idea for a joint currency never came to fruition.
In fact, in 2008, Belarus tied its currency, the Belarus Rouble,
to the US dollar, rather than to the Russian Rouble.
Meanwhile, even on key foreign policy issues, Belarus diverged from Moscow
- sometimes in highly significant ways.
Perhaps the best example came after Russia's decision to recognise the Georgian territories
of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, in 2008.
While Moscow managed to persuade some other countries to also recognise the territories,
Belarus refused to follow suit - no doubt to Putin's undoubted embarrassment.
All this seemed to show that the idea of a close political union had dropped off the agenda.
However, the Union State couldn't even be described as a loose confederal arrangement by this stage.
Instead, it became to be seen and presented merely as being an international organization.
But, even then, it seemed to become a very secondary body.
For much of the past decade and a half, Russia's focus seems to have been on building ties between
the former Soviet republics in other spheres, such as the Eurasian Economic Union,
which not only includes Belarus, but also Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
In recent years, the relationship between Moscow and Minsk has become marked by even more tension,
with Moscow feeling that Minsk has not been doing enough to align itself with Russia.
It's also stated that if Belarus wants more economic cooperation,
it's going to have to accept greater political integration.
This seems to suggest that Russia hasn't entirely given up on the idea of the Union.
And it's against this backdrop that the current instability in Belarus is playing out.
With the Lukashenko administration under extreme pressure,
the question is whether it will now have to rely on Russian intervention of some sort to survive.
And, if so, what will Moscow's price for this be?
Will we see a resurrection, or even a reboot of the Union State,
even under the unequal terms that Lukashenko had been avoiding?
Of course, if Lukashenko falls then this too would seemingly
be likely to open up a debate about the Union State
- but perhaps not in the way that many might expect.
Importantly, and clearly not wishing to push Moscow towards supporting Lukashenko,
the Belarus opposition has in fact said it would not seek to abandon the Union State if it were to come to power.
The relationship between russia and belarus is fascinating
The decision of the two countries to pursue the Union State was seen by many as opening the path to eventual
unification within a single country.
And this in fact seems to have been the original intention;
not least of all in the mind of the Belarus leader, Alexander Lukashenka.
However, it hasn't worked out like that.
The growing strength of Russia, and of Putin, put paid to that idea.
And while it's now seemingly described as an international organization,
this also seems to be a little bit ambitious.
Instead, the two countries have developed an extremely complex relationship,
with Minsk often trying to chart a course between maintaining close economic ties with Moscow
and keeping its options open in terms of good relations with the West.
And yet, given the current political instability in Belarus,
the subject of the Union State looks set to become more significant.
The debate on this strange and uncertain project, which has been on hold for many years,
could well be about to become much, much more interesting.
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