UKRAINIAN REALITIES AND BELARUSAN PROSPECTS: LESSONS, THREATS, POSSIBILITIES

Andrei Kirchiv,
analyst (Ukraine)

Internal policy

Despite their recently common Soviet past and apparent similarities in some characteristic algorithms of political processes, the countries have developed their own entirely different regimes. Ukraine (especially after the 2004 presidential election which provoked almost revolutionary events) is trying to prove to itself and the whole world that there is a strong tendency of developing democracy and pluralism of a European rate. The previous year’s crisis after the parliamentary election and actions, first of all by the President, on the one hand, emphasize the weak sides of the constitutional state during its infancy, and on the other hand, they show its skill to teeter on the verge of a domestic political, and even civil conflict, not using military mechanisms (which are characteristic of authoritative or totalitarian systems).

Lawmakers’ legal nihilism, conversion of the political process into legal casuistry, absence of any, at least minimally efficient judicial power, the use of criminal manipulative mechanisms aimed at an intrastate split with the purpose of ensuring narrow political interests, want of political culture in rhetoric at all levels, attempts of usurping power by each of its branches, unprecedented and open political and economic corruption – this is not a full list of negative factors, influencing society now. Danger of political apathy with elements of aggression keeps growing practically at all levels of society. No need in explaining what results such processes can bring in the near future, even in case this long-term crisis is settled totally legally soon.

However, during 2004 – 2007, invaluable experience of refusing military solutions, of seeking patiently for difficult compromises and of establishing standard game rules for everyone, has been obtained. Even with no achievement of the mentioned steps’ 100-percent effect, the important result, at last, is that little by little the politicians have to obey these rules or, at least, to imitate their obedience. Besides, now there is finally a “point of no return” to irrational geopolitical creatures, e.g. “Slavic States’ Union” or other constructions with Russia’s leading and managing role in domestic and foreign politics. Even in traditionally pro-Moscow-oriented and almost totally Russian-speaking eastern regions of Ukraine, there is Ukrainian self-identification now. Political forces resorting to the promotion of the idea of a state unity with “the Elder Brother”, only appeal to the dying out electorate of the Soviet epoch and have curtailed down to the marginal level.

Of course, one must not underestimate the depth of Russia’s influence on the internal political and public life in Ukraine, lobbyism of the Russian Federation’s interests at the highest level and the factor of the presence in Crimea of a significant and aggressively active military contingent of Putin’s neo-empire. Danger of this influence is amplified by the central authorities turning a blind eye to obvious infringements of the current legislation, especially when it comes to protection of national priorities and values. Also, one must not be consoled with the tendency for Russophilism to decrease at the national level because it is at the level of the regions adjacent to Russia that this influence provokes separative moods and exploits actively anticonstitutional ideas of a territorial redistribution. Thus, Russian political hawks’ voyages to Crimea, local politicians’ appeals to refuse state sovereignty, propaganda of the Russian language as the only state language in Ukraine, as well as Russian sailors’ impudent arbitrariness on the Ukrainian territory and strategically important objects, receive official Kyiv’s inadequately languid comments and are almost completely ignored by the bodies which official duties include control over observance of the present Constitution’s standards. It means the authorities at the local show the fundamental law’s declarative, instead of imperative, character of action, and it is accordingly the source of legal nihilism at all levels of society.

At the present stage, the description of the internal political trends in Ukraine is of little use in the applied plan for the Belarusan realities. No use in describing the character and features of the ruling regime in Belarus as the Belarusan audience knows this information down to the level of applied nuances. Nevertheless, the actual situation in Ukraine has all chances to become a peculiar political mirror of Belarus in its post-Lukashism period. Therefore, its detailed analysis and estimation is an opportunity for the future Belarusan political and state leaders to prevent the development of some harmful similar schemes and patterns.

Power and economic safety

In this respect, the Ukrainian and Belarusan situations’ similarity is too striking, which is defined by the Russian factor as well. Soviet-esque inefficient and energy-consuming economies both newly-independent countries have inherited, have been changed minimally in their improvement direction. It can be explained it by then political elites’ strong belief in high-grade sovereignty’s inexpediency and their searches for the ways of reforming the Union state, conservation of strategic personnel potential (state managers of the highest level, scientific and technical elite) in Moscow, cheap energy carriers and absence of a vital necessity in development and introduction of energy-economical and energy-effective technologies, interdependence of production cycles based on the irrational Soviet supply pattern, active promotion of the CIS inner market as an alternative to the global one, and as a result - the internal standards of production which are incompatible with the global ones, etc.

For instance, the energy intensity of Ukraine’s gross domestic product (in its recalculation for the international system of calculation) is 0,98 kilo of oil equivalent for one USD, while on the average in the world this parameter is 0,31; EU - 0,27; in such countries as Japan, France, Germany - from 0,20 to 0,25. The parameter of power consumption of Ukraine’s gross domestic product is three - five times worse, in comparison with the advanced countries of the world. It limits objectively local production’s competitiveness and burdens national economy, especially now, when it does depend on external power supply.

The mentioned above pattern has initiated two main threats for independence and national safety of Ukraine and Belarus, i.e. Russia-directed orientation of a rather large part of their export potential and almost all import of energy carriers. Thus, the latter is the key factor in the context of prospects of developing economy and guarantees of firmness of their sovereignty.

This is such a half-natural half-political way Moscow has been given the levers of a constant political pressure and a chance to correct both countries’ internal political lines with the purpose of their optimization to Russia’s interests. In Belarus, this dependence (plus the political regimes’ full compatibility) has resulted in the creation of the quasi-allied state. In Ukraine, it has resulted in the mentioned above destabilizing Russian factor of a powerful influence on internal and foreign policy. In order to strengthen and fix the achieved political-economic advantages, Russia has concentrated its efforts on capturing both states’ oil-and-gas transportation systems.
It is necessary to remind that Ukraine has today a gas transportation system (GTS) consisting of 37,000 kilometres of gas pipelines, 71 compressor stations, 13 unique underground storehouses of gas, a network of gas distribution and gas-measuring units. Russia’s official propaganda names it “scrap metal”, while its entry throughput is 290 billion cubic meters, the exit throughput is 175 billion cubic meters of gas per year, including 140 billion cubic meters for the European countries. The Ukrainian GTS is closely connected with the neighbouring European countries’ systems - Poland, Belarus, Russia, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia, and is integrated through them with the all-European gas network. Therefore, without exaggeration it is possible to say that the Ukraine’s GTS is a sort of a bridge between the gas producing areas (Russia and Central Asia) and consumers from Europe. The basic stream of Russian and Central Asian gas export deliveries (about 85 percent) is carried out through the territory of Ukraine. The Ukrainian system can provide the transit of growing volumes of gas. There is a technical possibility to increase its transit to the Central and Western European countries from the actual level of 105 up to 140 billion cubic meters per year without the GTS expansion.

No comments are needed to explain the interest in possession of such a network. Taking into account some tasks of Russia’s power strategy for the period till 2020, it becomes clear what is meant here:

“Russia has always been one of the leading energy states. In the world production of fuel and energy, its share is 23 percent of extracted gas, about 10 percent of oil (including gas condensate), almost 6 percent of coal and 6 percent of electric power. There is a full confidence that the role of the Russian fuel and energy resources in forming steady power supply will keep being the same in the 21st century.

Nowadays, we occupy the leading place in resource potential and initial power resources production – the first place in gas extraction; the second one in oil; the fourth one in electric power; the sixth in coal mining.

External demand for the Russian power resources will grow, and by 2020 it will be up to 855 million tons, including: oil - up to 309 million tons; gas - up to 245 billion cubic meters. During the nearest years, export of power resources will remain to be the key factor in developing national economy. The strategy’s main task is to preserve Russia’s worthy place at the global power markets. For the CIS countries, Russia is the major supplier of power resources. The basic consumers are Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Moldova. Though there are serious obstacles on the way of steady cooperation, there are also preconditions of uniting the CIS into a uniform economic space. The strategy provides conservation of 18 - 19 percent in deliveries to the CIS countries. According to the plan, the delivery of power resources to the CIS countries will be 150 million tons till 2020.

The Western and Central Europe is still one of the largest markets for Russia during the next 20 - 25 years. The further cooperation will include joint energy projects and exchange of experience in introducing the advanced scientific and technical development. In case of integration of the Russian and European markets, in 2020 gas export to these countries will constitute 160 - 165 billion cubic meters; oil – 150 - 160 million tons. The Novorossiysk pipeline system is being extended; oil pipelines around Chechnya and Ukraine, as well as the first part of the Baltic pipeline system, are being built.

The strategy provides the organization of parallel work of Russia’s energy system with the power supply systems of Europe. It will provide Russia’s equal access to the markets of Europe with a scale effect of execution. Growth of demand for Russian electric power in Europe is valued in 35 billion kWh by 2010 and up to 75 billion kWh by 2020.” (Magazine “Russia’s Economy: 21st Century”, № 13)

This vast quotation emphasizes once again that, taking into account the absence of diversifying alternatives of supplying Europe with energy carriers, about which it is said in the European strategy of power safety, on the one hand, and because of the technical and political complications in building the pipeline in the Baltic Sea (as it is technologically complex and expensive; Estonia’s water area expansion) on the other hand, - Russia will do its best only to guarantee an uninterrupted stream of oil and gas through the transport networks of Ukraine and Belarus. The Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council) did forbid selling or privatizing the Ukraine’s GTS. The official Moscow did not like it and tried to compensate it by increasing again the cost of fuel hydrocarbons and lobbying that decision’s revision. Something similar is happening in Belarus. Nevertheless, the situation here is more difficult because of its high debts.

External challenges and threats

Ukraine’s and Belarus’s external political situation is first of all formed by two defining factors - both countries are a buffer zone between two essentially various political systems that have shaped their safety concepts in corresponding military political blocks (NATO and Tashkent Pact); both states are an active zone of transit of energy carriers from Russia to Western Europe. Safety and stability for any price in this space is a vital element in policies of those who are around Ukraine and Belarus. It is the factor which forces the countries of the NATO and Russia to make arrangement among them. The problem is that usually such arrangements do not take into account the interests of the countries which are the object of negotiations and agreements between politicians. The West always considered (and still does) both sovereign states to be the territory controlled by Russia where it guarantees stability.

Russia’s Military Doctrine since 2000 proves the presented thesis, confirming legally that “The Russian Federation’s priority interest is to strengthen the system of collective security within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States on the basis of developing and strengthening the Collective Security Agreement; to conduct together with the Republic of Belarus defensive policy; to coordinate with it Russia’s activity in the field of military construction; to develop the armed forces of the states-participants of the Allied state; to use the military infrastructure; and to apply other measures to maintain defensibility of the Allied state.” This document also directly underlines protection (including the military one) of Russia’s interests in its own borders and abroad, where Russia’s state-run, economic and military objects are situated. In other words, even though Ukraine’s Constitution declares its non-belonging to any blocks, while Belarus belongs to the Tashkent Pact, Russia has carte blanch to act in this region – the fact which caused displeasure expressed openly or indirectly by the EU and NATO new members which due to historic or geographical reasons are close to both states, in particular Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania. Russia’s relations with NATO became especially aggravated after the U.S. decision to place elements of the ballistic missile defence system on the territory of NATO neighbours of Ukraine and Putin's correspondent declarations. This fact did worry Ukraine, feeling it might become a potential battlefield again.

For a long time yet, in Ukraine, there has been an active campaign, first of all initiated by the U.S.A. and the mentioned states, concerning the refusal of the neutral status and entry to NATO. During the aggravation of the internal political struggle, this factor is exploited both by adherents and sceptics of the European-Atlantic vector of Ukraine’s integration. Several steps in the direction of granting advantage to the system of global collective security have already been taken: President Yushchenko always expresses Ukraine’s desire to join the EU and NATO practically everywhere; the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine carries out an intensive reform of the Army in order to comply with the NATO standards; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has officially expressed the refusal to keep Russian military bases and other infrastructures on the territory of Ukraine after 2017. Nonetheless, a significant part of Ukrainian society, being “heated” by pan-Slavic and pro-Russian propagandists, is not ready to perceive these ideas – therefore, it has no sense to organize a national referendum concerning the specified questions right now.

In the context of its political line and safety, the situation with Belarus essentially differs from the Ukrainian analogue, first of all because of contraversity of its foreign political priorities. The concept of Belarus’s national safety, in particular, says, “the major factor of external safety is the union with the Russian Federation. ... By virtue of independent external and internal policy Belarus is object of ungrounded political and other pressure from the side of the USA and other NATO member states. They support the activity of destructive forces inside the country which aim is to destabilize the public and political situation and to violently change the constitutional order.” At the same time, taking into account the change of the concept of Russia’s energy “carrots”, President Lukashenko was angered and tried to play a game of changing the vector of his foreign policy. However, his dalliance with the West, while still refusing reforms of his own authoritarian regime, gave no results.
The formation of strange constructions of cooperation such as Belarus – Cuba –Venezuela has no common sense and is not supported economically. Besides, the direct threats to Belarus’s sovereignty are still the Tashkent Pact and the Treaty of Alliance with Russia which allow it de jure to keep the significant Russian military contingent on the Belarusan territory. There is also the mentioned above factor of influence on foreign policy and national safety, that is energy supply. As the secretary general of the Netherlands’ delegacy in the social democratic section of the European Parliament Camille Hamans has said recently, “control over power resources and their transit is control over other participants of global economy.” Understanding it perfectly, both Russia and the West will try to limit maximally Ukraine and Belarus and their GTS. There is a chance they may achieve absolutely unexpected compromises. At least, it is proved by the fact that democratic Europe tolerates Putin’s autocracy.

Prospect of common actions

In brief:

- to reform the existing regime in Belarus in the democratic direction (a compromise between various branches and directions of opposition and creation of a common platform and a programme of actions in the political, economic and other spheres; a constitutional change of power, declaring the change of the vector of foreign policy and safety into the European-Atlantic direction);

- to preserve the national control over the pipelines, first of all - the GTS of both countries; to adjust the transit tariffs in conformity with the international standards, fixing the percentage sum from the cost of a unit of transporting production;

- a large-scale cooperation agreement of the states of the Baltic - Black Sea basin (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Scandinavian states, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey); adjustment of their cooperation with the countries of the Caspian basin in the field of oil and gas production and transportation of energy carriers; formation of a common sub-regional “zone of safety”;

- to create a common strategy and mechanisms of counteraction to external threats (aggression, economic and political dictate, international terrorism, etc.);

Эканамічныя і палітычныя перспектывы Беларусі ва ўмовах рынкавай эканомікі

9—10 чэрвеня 2007 г.

Тэзісы

1. Аксиологические и экономические детерминанты общественного выбора Беларуси в 2007 – 2015 годах. Леонид Заико, руководитель аналитического центра “Стратегия”, экономист (Беларусь).
Аксіялагічныя і эканамічныя дэтэрмінанты грамадскага выбару Беларусі ў 2007 – 2015 гадах. Леанід Заіка, кіраўнік аналітычнага цэнтра “Стратэгія”, эканаміст (Беларусь).

2. Возможности повышения уровня жизни населения Беларуси в условиях роста цен на энергоносители. Леонид Злотников, кандидат экономических наук (Беларусь).
Магчымасці павышэння ўзроўню жыцця насельніцтва Беларусі ва ўмовах росту коштаў на энерганосьбіты. Леанід Злотнікаў, кандыдат эканамічных навук (Беларусь).
Ways to increase the living standard of the population of Belarus in the context of the energy carriers’ price rise. Leonid Zlotnikov, Economic Sciences Candidate (Belarus).

3. Українські реалії і білоруські перспективи: уроки, загрози, можливості. Андрій Кирчів, аналітик (Україна).
Украінскія рэаліі і беларускія перспектывы: урокі, пагрозы, магчымасці. Андрэй Кірчыў, аналітык (Украіна).
Ukrainian realities and belarusan prospects: lessons, threats, possibilities. Andrei Kirchiv, analyst (Ukraine).

4. Праблемы рынкавай трансфармацыі Беларусі. Кірыл Коктыш, кандыдат палітычных навук, дацэнт кафедры палітычнай тэорыі МДІМЗ (У) МЗС (Расія).

5. Трансформационные задачи Беларуси. Михаил Маринич, экс-министр внешнеэкономических связей Беларуси, экс-посол Беларуси в Латвии, Эстонии и Финляндии, доктор наук (Беларусь).
Трансфармацыйныя задачы Беларусі. Міхаіл Марыніч, экс-міністр знешнеэканамічных сувязяў Беларусі, экс-амбасадар Беларусі ў Латвіі, Эстоніі і Фінляндыі, доктар навук (Беларусь).

6. Альтернативные источники поставок энергоносителей Беларусь – пиар-акция или реальность Олег Мусловец, директор Интернет-ресурса Агентство финансовых новостей (Беларусь).
Альтэрнатыўныя крыніцы пастаўкі энерганосьбітаў у Беларусь — піяр-акцыя альбо рэчаіснасць? Алег Муславец, дырэктар інтэрнэт-рэсурсу “Агенцтва фінансавых навінаў” (Беларусь)
Alternative sources of energy carriers supply to Belarus – PR action or reality. Oleg Muslovets, Director of Financial News Agency internet resource (Belarus).

7. Паміж Масквой і Бруселем (перспектывы “новай” знешняй палітыкі Беларусі). Уладзімір Роўда, кандыдат філасофскіх навук, дацэнт кафедры паліталогіі ЕГУ (Беларусь)
Between Moscow and Brussels (prospects of Belarus’s new foreign policy). Uladzimir Rouda, Philosophic Sciences Candidate (Belarus).

8. Досвід України у формуванні системи енергетичної безпеки та можливості його застосування в Білорусі. Соскін Олег Ігорович, директор Інституту трансформації суспільства, професор, завідувач кафедри міжнародної економіки та підприємництва Національної академії управління (Україна).
Досвед Украіны ў фармаванні сістэмы энергетычнай бяспекі і магчымасці яго прымянення ў Беларусі. Алег Соскін, дырэктар Інстытута трансфармацыі грамадства, прафесар Нацыянальнай акадэміі кіравання (Украіна)

9. Внутриполитические последствия нефтегазового кризиса. Виктор Чернов, политолог, исполнительный директор ОО “Открытое общество”, Сергей Николюк, политический обозреватель (Беларусь).
Унутрыпалітычныя наступствы нафтагазавага крызісу. Віктар Чарноў, палітолаг, выканаўчы дырэктар ГА “Адкрытае грамадства”, Сяргей Нікалюк, палітычны аглядальнік (Беларусь).
Internal political consequences of the oil-and-gas crisis. Viktar Charnou, political scientist, executive director of PA “Open Society”, Siarhej Nikolyuk, political observer (Belarus).