Minsk – The run-off presidential election in Ukraine is scheduled for February 7. As we know, this time it is the final grapple between Yulia Tymoshenko and Viktor Yanukovych. The first thing Belarus is interested in is how our countries’ mutual relations can change with the replacement of the Ukrainian president.
AT LEAST THREE REASONS
This lively interest is caused by at least three reasons.
Firstly, the bilateral trade between the two countries, though considerably dwindling over the last year, reached the mark of 2.7 billion dollars as of January–November 2009 alone, with Ukraine running a trade surplus.
Secondly, Kyiv rendered considerable aid to Minsk in terms of joining the Eastern Partnership Program and coming closer to major European structures, which was soon reflected in the international priorities of the Belarusian leadership.
Finally, Ukraine is perhaps the only neighbor country with whom Belarus has not had any serious problems or controversies over the years of independence.
However, the problems of border demarcation might be an exception here. The Ukrainian parliament ratified the relevant treaty back in 1997. Our [Belarusian] legislative assembly is still procrastinating. Moreover, despite the rather warm and fruitful last year’s meeting between Alexander Lukashenko and Viktor Yushchenko in Kyiv and the determination of Belarusian parliament to ratify the Treaty on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, the head of the State Border Committee Ihor Rachkovsky recently said that the process of demarcation can take up to 10 years. He also voiced the estimated cost of the demarcation, around 51 billion Belarusian roubles. Rachkovsky made this statement at the session of the Standing Commission on International Affairs and Relations with the CIS at the House of Representatives of the National Assembly.
SUCH ISSUES ARE NOT SETTLED OVERNIGHT
A number of reasons are given to justify the procrastination of the demarcation – for example, that the Treaty on State Border calls for establishing a joint commission on demarcation. The document also defines the notion of the state border on land, water, subsurface, and in the air. The conditions of demarcation are fixed in the descriptive protocol of demarcation and in the album of topographic maps. Belarus and Ukraine are also supposed to exchange topographic and geodetic information, as well as cartographic and aerophotographic materials necessary for the preparation of the documents on delimitation, demarcation, and verification of the state border. And so on, and so forth.
Rachkovsky also mentioned the ratification of the ill-fated treaty by Belarusian parliament (scheduled for April 2, 2010): “The ratification of the Treaty on the Belarusian-Ukrainian State Border is of great importance for our country, as the border with Ukraine makes up about one-third of the total state border of Belarus. Besides, under this Treaty, Belarus is to get over 400 hectares of land.”
Rachkovsky also said why this treaty could not be ratified earlier: “Belarus has refrained from ratifying it due to economic and political matters.”
It was a curious coincidence that such serious statements by a high Belarusian official had to be made almost immediately after the first round of presidential election in Ukraine, on January 19.
NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY
Andrei Fedorov, a well-known Belarusian political scientist, believes that there is nothing out of the ordinary in this situation. Whoever becomes president in Ukraine, Tymoshenko or Yanukovych, it will hardly tell on the process of ratification of the State Border Treaty or on the two nations’ mutual relations: “There is not a hint of sensationalism in Rachkovsky’s statement. These are the routine moments of the process of future demarcation of the state border.
“I feel obliged to remind you that the demarcation of our border with the EU nations [Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia – A.K.] also took nearly 10 years. Likewise, the country was able to procure resources for this complicated process, although the EU allotted certain funds for it, too.
“As to the relations with the future Ukrainian president – whoever thinks that they will dramatically change if Yanukovych takes over is deeply mistaken. There would be a reason for some concern should Yanukovych rush to restore and rebuild the relations with Moscow. However, this is highly unlikely, at least due to the fact that, according to my information, Yanukovych is being backed by a very rich person from Donbas, whose business interests run contrary to those of Russians.
“As to Tymoshenko, all signs, both visible and invisible, show that she is a priori not going to change the relations with the present Belarusian leadership.”
A TRUE SENSATION
Roman Yakovlevsky, an expert, holds a different opinion of what is going on: “Before Rachkovsky’s statement, which I perceive as a true sensation, the future of the Belarus–Ukraine relations looked absolutely clear and easy, regardless of who would become Ukraine’s new president. Now, a lot of issues arise. Indeed, Lukashenko had meetings in Kyiv with both Tymoshenko and Yanukovych and, of course, with the incumbent president, Yushchenko. The Belarusian leader declared that all the problems concerning the state border had been settled, and what remained was only a formality. Now we see effectively different results.”
Yakovlevsky is convinced that these “different results” will call for an adequate reaction on the part of any newly elected Ukrainian president: “Be it Yanukovych or Tymoshenko, they will anyway have to solve three major problems in the relations with Minsk. The first one is the ratification of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. The second one is the transit of Ukrainian electricity to the Baltic States via Belarus. Finally, there are issues concerning trade in the frontier area.”
In Yakovlevsky’s opinion, there are serious reservations regarding all three statements above.
He believes that after Rachkovsky’s statement, the matter of issue of the Belarusian-Ukrainian border has only become more complicated. Yakovlevsky is convinced that on April 2, when the Belarusian parliament is to ratify the Treaty on the State Border between the two countries, it can turn into “another Abkhazia and South Ossetia”: “Why not postpone this ratification until later again, perhaps, till some indefinite time? Why not earn certain capital here, putting to the test the strength of the new Ukrainian president? This is what Lukashenko often used to do, and still does, to the old and new Russian leadership.”
The details of the prospective transportation of Ukrainian electricity in transit to the Baltic via our territory are not quite clearly defined yet, either. This does not in the least look odd, as the Belarusian leadership is still having serious trouble with the supply and transit of the electricity from our nearest (in Lukashenko’s words) ally, the Russian Federation.
Nor is everything simple and easy in the frontier trade. Ukraine is a WTO member, while Belarus can only dream about it. Due to this, trade in the frontier zone is not going to be an easy matter.
Both presidential candidates, Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, several times declared their firm intentions to promote the development of the Ukraine–Belarus relations in every possible way. However, their resolution alone is not enough. It takes an equally constant firmness on the part of the Belarusian president.
Finally, we need full-blown and maximally advantageous relations with our southern neighbor no less than it does.
The Day’S FACTFILE
The Ukrainian Embassy in Minsk and the Consulate General in Brest have informed that in the first round of presidential elections, most Ukrainian voters in Belarus cast their votes for Yanukovych, ex-prime minister and leader of the Party of Regions. The current prime minister, Tymoshenko, is the runner-up.
Voter turnout at the polling station at the embassy was 9.89 percent. The total number of actual voters was 670 persons out of 6.777 eligible voters. Yanukovych ranks first, with Tymoshenko following. The ex-chair of the National Bank of Ukraine and former head of Yanukovych’s election staff in 2004, Serhii Tihipko, is third. The incumbent president Yushchenko is fourth, while the fifth place belongs to Arsenii Yatseniuk, ex-foreign affairs minister and ex-speaker of parliament, who is now the leader of the Front of Changes.
