Authors

Discussion

The Union State, an organisation connecting Belarus and Russia, is the oldest currently active integration grouping in the Eurasia region. I was created during the 1990s, following a series of treaties finalized with the 1999 “Treaty on the Creation of the Union State”.

Research on that organisation is relatively scarce, particularly in Western research circles. More attention is given to the Eurasian Economic Union, as an economic integration organisation, and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, given its military focus. The Union State is usually treated as a part of Belarusian-Russian relations and mentioned only briefly.

Partially, this lack of interest comes from the unevenness of the integration process. Although the political leadership of both countries was optimistic about the progress of the integration, the real progress was somewhat hampered by different tensions between Minsk and Moscow, as well as the reluctance of Belarus’ Alyaksandr Lukashenka to surrender elements of his sovereignty. As a result, the process of integration within the Union State was a disrupted one.

After the initial progress in the second half of the 90s. new documents were prepared and signed in 2007 and 2008. They envisaged the creation of supranational organs (including the president of the Union) that would manage joint policies. These agreements led to the creation of the Supreme State Council, the joint Council of Ministers, and a limited judiciary system.

Another step in the integration came in 2019 and 2021. The two countries signed roadmaps of integration, which envisaged deepening the integration, particularly in the economic sphere. The roadmaps were followed by the agreement of the Union’s integration programmes. The most recent progress was the 2024 treaty on mutual security guarantees.

The assessment of the sectoral integration suggests that the process was uneven, not only in historical terms but also throughout the integration categories. The deepest progress is visible in security cooperation, not only military but also in information security. The free movement of people, goods, and services is also well advanced; however, other elements of economic integration are stuck behind the agreed schedule. Political integration progressed formally, but most of the decisions are usually made during the informal meetings of Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin.

These peculiarities of the integration within the Union State go against Western theories of integration that focus on a bottom-up process, usually based on economic foundations. The paper will focus on explaining the reasons for that discrepancy that would go beyond the approaches that see this process as the Russian expansion in Belarus.