Economy

Since the beginning of the new year the Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus has unexpectedly appeared in the media on two occasions. Unlike in Western countries in present-day Belarus you do not hear much about trade unions. The Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus, also dubbed the ‘official’ trade union, has about 4 million members and thousands of regional, local and...

November and December events clearly show that Russia's policies towards Belarus are dictated primarily not by economic considerations but political. Russia is willing to spend billions of dollars in subsidies to keep the status quo in Belarus.  The European Union, on the other hand, is more and more busy with its own problems, the most important of which is the crisis of the Eurozone...

On 16 December two Belarusian citizens were added to the EU visa ban list, and EU assets of three companies associated with the Belarusian regime were frozen. The European Union continues to impose different sanctions on Belarus at the request of human rights activists. However, this policy fails to provide the EU with additional leverage in the country.

Today the EU can neither offer...

The Belarusian government spent the whole year actively looking for money to sustain the collapsing socio-economic model. It was looked for everywhere: in the West and the East, in Europe, Asia and Latin America, at the IMF and EurAsEC. And over the last several weeks finally Belarus managed to get a big chunk of foreign loans. The biggest ‘gift’ came from Russia as a reward for...

Last Friday, after months of uncertainty, Alyaksandr Lukashenka decisively moved to guarantee his political survival for the foreseeable future by signing a series of agreements with Russia. This was the sequel to Belarus's earlier entry into the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.

The agreements came as a disappointment to Western politicians who had speculated that the isolation...

As 2011 draws to a close, the Lukashenka regime has averted economic and political collapse.  To be sure, the economy is still in a fragile state: the ruble has suffered three major devaluations since May; inflation has soared to 90 percent; external debt is at over half of GDP; and growth continues to slow. But all this may not matter much because Belarus now has two “lenders of...

Belarus has managed to secure significant monetary benefits in exchange for its active support of the new wave of Russian integration initiatives. Generous Russian subsidies followed almost immediately after the solemn signing of the Declaration on Eurasian Economic Integration on 18 November 2011. On that same day Belaruskali (read Belarus government) got USD 1 billion as a result of a...

This November Belarusians observed highly unusual political developments. On 8 November Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich denounced the Presidential Administration and the President’s aide on economic affairs Siarhey Tkachou personally for systemic mistakes in economic policy.

Myasnikovich argued that the Presidential Administration and Tkachou had personally been the key...

Last Thursday, director of the Nuclear Energy Department Mikalaj Hrusha unexpectedly began to talk about the need to enlarge Belarus' atomic energy program. According to the Belarusian authorities, the first Belarusian nuclear power plant may have four rather than two reactors.

Until recently, the government was planning to install two Russian-designed and built reactors with a...

On 4 November Alyaksandr Lukashenka declared that Belarus and Russia were close to reaching a new agreement on natural gas supplies for 2012. He also expressed confidence about the probability of coming to an agreement with Russia on equal prices for oil and gas within the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan. However, Lukashenka also made it clear that if the suitable...

On 8 November Minsk signed a deal with Dagong Credit Rating Co Ltd, China’s largest credit ratings agency, to assess its sovereign credit rating. State-owned Dagong may issue a more favorable rating than the US agency Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded Belarus from B to B- in late September.

The deal is part and parcel of Beijing’s bailout for Belarus – in...