Russian President Vladimir Putin today rescued the idea of the State Union with Belarus following the recent thaw between the neighboring country and the European Union, which has raised almost all sanctions against Minsk.
EFE
"This integration project successfully develops and, no doubt, has become the engine of integration processes throughout the post-Soviet space," Putin, who arrived today on an official visit to the Belarusian capital said.
Putin, who chaired the meeting of the so-called State Union, recalled that it was the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, and the current Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who created this partnership between the two former Soviet republics in 1996.
"I would like to emphasize that nothing has been lost everything began just twenty years (...) makes, we are on time to take the next step in the development of our exceptional relations," he said, according to Russian media reported.
For his part, Lukashenko stressed how right was to preserve the State Union, while acknowledging that the economic crisis has dealt a serious blow to bilateral trade.
"We continue building the State Union in a complicated conditions. Yes, we are under the influence of the global crisis, but I am convinced that we will overcome the problems, "he said.
Lukashenko recalled that trade between the two countries fell 25% last year, a blow to the Belarusian economy, which depends heavily on Russian imports.
In addition to approving the budget of the State Union this year and encrypt 6,000 billion rubles (70 million euros), Lukashenko said he would also speak to Putin in defense matters.
"The political and military crisis, the return of some countries to the bloc mentality and the universal use of sanctions as an instrument of political pressure force us to keep our powder dry," he said.
It is not known whether he meant the airbase that Putin has decided to build on Belarusian territory to contain the advance of NATO to Russia's borders and that is opposed by the Lukashenko time.
The State Union, a project that was born when Yeltsin proposed to Minsk in 1994 forging a confederation, is stalled for years due to lack of agreement on the level of integration of both countries.
Lukashenko, in power since 1996, advocates a union "between equals" and warned that the project will resign if the Kremlin is proposed that Belarus is an integral part of the Russian Federation.
Putin's trip to Minsk, accompanied by his Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev coincides with the lifting of sanctions against Lukashenko and 170 other Belarusian citizens by the EU.
The current thaw between Belarus and the EU contributed to the decision to Lukashenko to pardon all political prisoners, to what their mediator and neutral stance joined in the Ukrainian conflict, to host peace talks in Minsk, and its refusal to recognize Russian annexation of the Crimea.