ST. Petersburg, December 20. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin has acknowledged that Moscow and Minsk failed to implement many points of the Union State Treaty since it was signed 20 years ago, at the same time lauding great success in building up the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
"On December 8, we marked the 20th anniversary of the Union State Treaty signing and in spite of the fact that many points — we admitted that — failed to be implemented as part of this treaty, the results of the work on this document are also significant," Putin said at a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on Friday.
Lukashenko backed the opinion of his Russian counterpart. "Overall, since the Soviet Union collapse we have not drifted apart too much from each other in economy, politics or social sphere. This is another great achievement of this [Union State] treaty," he stressed. "Even though we did not enact the points envisaged there, we did not stray away from each other either as it happened with Russia and other republics in the post-Soviet space and not only the Baltic states or Ukraine," the Belarusian leader said. He hailed it as "another achievement."
"However, you were right saying that we have something to work on," Lukashenko agreed with the Russian president.
Integration processes
Putin emphasized that when Moscow and Minsk embarked on the integration process the bilateral trade was at the level of $9 billion, while now it reaches $35.5 billion.
"Moreover, there are issues that we have resolved in social sphere, it is a great support for the people," the Russian leader continued. He also pointed out that the experience that Russia and Belarus acquired together in inter-state building "was broadly used in establishing integration unions, particularly the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)." "In other words, it had such a lasting importance not only for us but for our partners as well," he added.
Putin underscored that colleagues from the Russian and Belarusian governments "worked well" after a recent meeting of the leaders in Sochi on December 7. "We are very glad to see you to be able to continue this conversation," he said.
Lukashenko also listed milestones achieved in the Union State framework. In particular, he drew attention to the fact that two countries "created a common defense space, common operation space for our intelligence services that maintain contacts in their work." "We always underline that we don’t have any issues with our diplomatic agencies, we have a common customs service, common border in the west in this case <…>, we have common air-defense and a joint body of troops in the western direction," Lukashenko commented. He also added, "Russia has no problems with flying over Belarus in the air transport sphere."
"Moreover, our Belorusneft oil company has made a return to the Russian market and is now not only providing services but also reviving old oil fields — the company is going strong — it is already extracting oil in Russia in cooperation with other companies," Lukashenko recalled.
Speaking of economy and social sphere, the Belarusian leader emphasized that "Belarus today not only purchases commodities in Russia but also assembly parts, while more than 10 million Russians work in Russian enterprises that our [Belarusian] companies have contacts with, producing end products." "Imagine how many people are engaged in our bilateral trade and production cooperation," he said.
The leaders are having their meeting in St. Petersburg’s Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library which will later welcome the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) summit and an informal meeting of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders.