Experts predict problems in the economy after the integration of Russia and Belarus

According to the Belarusian ambassador in Moscow, the integration is planned to be completed by January 1, 2022. The process includes the creation of common energy and transport markets, the unification of tax and customs legislation, as well as the transition to a unified industrial and agricultural policy.Also, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry recalled its representative to the EU and suspended participation in the Eastern Partnership initiative.Vasily Solodkov, director of the HSE Banking Institute, believes that the Russian economy will primarily suffer from such actions.The expert also believes that the process will not happen within the announced deadlines, recalling that talks about the integration of the monetary system between the countries have been conducted for almost 30 years.

«Belarus is dominated by state-owned enterprises that are in manual control mode, the country's economy itself is relatively small and can exist for many years due to the infusion of money into it from Russia and the EU. Now Europe has expressed disapproval to Minsk, and the country's problems related to the inefficiency of the economy fall on the Russian budget. Roughly speaking, this means that Russian pensioners will live even worse. I don't see any concrete acquisitions for Russia from this». 

Other Russian experts were no less skeptical about this prospect. Economist Sergey Smirnov expresses a similar opinion: «What is happening in Belarus now is outside the civilized world. Under these conditions, Minsk shifts part of the sanctions that it has been subjected to to Russia. Therefore, I suspect that these may be fire methods that will partially mitigate the consequences for Belarus. But we should not forget that Russia is also under sanctions, and it would be wrong to tighten them in this direction as well».