Will Russia save Belarus?

In Belarus, they started talking about the prospects of creating a single food market with Russia. This initiative was voiced by the head of the main department of foreign economic activity of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Belarus Alexei Bogdanov. He stressed that Belarus and Russia, having created a single food market, could jointly take care of the food security of the two states and control the flow of food imports from third countries, including the EU countries.





Apparently, the restrictive measures that Russia has recently introduced in relation to some types of Belarusian agricultural products have affected Minsk. In addition to Russia, Belarusian agricultural products in such quantities are nowhere in demand. The Russian market is a natural and the only truly large consumer of Belarusian products. Russia, as you know, is the largest trading partner of Belarus in both export and import, and agricultural products, in turn, occupy one of the most important places in the structure of Belarusian exports.

Meanwhile, the Rosselkhoznadzor periodically severely criticizes the quality of agricultural products delivered from Belarus, primarily milk and dairy products. In February 2018, temporary restrictions were introduced on the supply to the Russian Federation of products of a number of Belarusian dairy enterprises. Then the introduction of restrictions was canceled, but Minsk is very scared of such sanctions. Such a market for the sale of its food products, as in Russia, Belarus will not find anywhere else.

At the same time, one should not forget about the fault of Belarus itself in the deterioration economic relations between the two countries. President Alexander Lukashenko has long been veering between Russia and the West, trying to sit on two chairs. When sanctions were imposed on Russia, and Moscow, in turn, restricted the import of products from the European Union, Minsk tried to cash in on this situation. The sanctioned goods were imported into Belarus, and then, already as Belarusian imports, entered the Russian Federation, thereby virtually nullifying the very meaning of retaliatory actions from Moscow.

Belarus itself notes that its products enjoy the sympathy and trust of the Russian consumer, and the contradictions that arise are the result of lobbying by importers from third countries. Therefore, the idea arose of forming a common food market. If Belarus had previously counted on diversifying its exports, trying to find other markets where Belarusian agricultural products would be in demand, the proposal to create a single market indicates that Minsk realized the enormous problems that the country would face if the import of Russian Federation. At the same time, it is very important for Russia that under the guise of a common food market and joint concern for food security, sanctioned products would not continue to enter the country under the guise of Belarus.