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BULLETINS INFOFOCUS № 5

E-bulletin of IISEPS Center for Documentation, N 5, 2009 – ISSN 1822-5578 (only Russian)

Content:

Introduction
1. Basic trends of May
2. Chronicle of key events
3. Politics

3.1. “Eastern Partnership” with the western neighbors
3.2. Fraternal dew from the sky
3.3. A commentary on the April “bad news”
3.4. How to gain a victory over this monster?
4. Economics
4.1. Accommodating to the unfavorable information
4.2. The Alexandrian lighthouse
4.3. Two logics
5. Finances
5.1. Trust as a financial resource
6. Good news
7. Our forecast for June

Introduction:

Dear readers!

 

Inclusion of Belarus into the “Eastern Partnership” program took place. Beginning with February, the topic had been perhaps the main source of “food” for independent analysts. However, the Prague summit went off, and just as we had supposed, it went off without any surprise and the topic of civilization choice which Belarus had allegedly faced began to impetuously lose its urgency.
The country plunged in the workaday life with a lot of economic crisis mixed into it. Belarusian economy as an independent phenomenon has not existed virtually since the beginning of the zero years. It has not got long to live without subsidies from outside; therefore cadging is the pivot of the country’s foreign policy.
Just as we had assumed, having completed the ritual formalities in the West, president A. Lukashenko returned to cultivating of the eastern “allotment”. On May, 28 a meeting of the Union Council of Ministers took place. The meeting ended in a scandal. The “father” lost his temper once again, and it is not difficult to understand him as the Russian party refused to issue another foreign currency loan, and the Belarusian party did not display any interest in the rubles which somewhat puzzled the analytical community, if one takes into account the trade balance of the Union state’s founders. The impression is that Belarus is not going, at least in the near future, to pay off the eastern debts; that is why it is not in want of Russian rubles.
The May scandal is not the first one and most likely not the last one in the history of the union relationship. Its negative consequences will disappear before long and subsidizing of the Belarusian economy by Russia will take its normal course. We make such an inference according to the decisions voiced by V. Putin in Minsk concerning Belarus paying for the Russian gas at an average price for a year and “Gazprom” paying for the transit for three quarters at once. Thus, the problem of Belarus recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia once again was left aside the union relationship, just as we had supposed.
In May the International Monetary Fund Mission completed its work in Belarus. No final decision on the allotment of another tranche for Belarus has been made so far. However, judging by the absence of reaction on the part of head of the Belarusian state similar to the one regarding the interviews of Russian Minister of Finance A. Kudrin, the final decision of the IMF is going to be auspicious for Belarus.
Our forecast concerning a GDP decrease has not come true once again. Administrative logic of a struggle for indicators proved to be stronger than the logic of a struggle for cost efficiency. By the way, A. Kudrin paid attention to it, too while talking to the journalists, and thus was ranked among the “dolts”.
However, the forecast regarding May cadre changes, or more exactly their absence, proved to be entirely correct. It would be logical to expect visible shifts among the authorities after striking the first six months’ balance, but one should not draw hasty conclusions in this case. Economic indicators are only the iceberg top of the facts and circumstances package which in the long run determines the real distribution of power inside the Belarusian “executive chain of command”.

IISEPS executive board

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