Russia, Belarus Agree on Outline of a New Union

Russia and Belarus, Slavic neighbors that conspired to break up the Soviet Union, agreed Saturday on the outline of a treaty that would bind the two nations closer while preserving their independence.

The agreement is the biggest step so far toward rejoining pieces of the Soviet empire that collapsed in 1991, and it appears to be driven by a strong Communist challenge to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s bid for reelection.

Belarussian President Alexander G. Lukashenko announced the accord after meeting here with Yeltsin and Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin. Lukashenko said a formal treaty will be signed April 2 and submitted for ratification by both nations’ parliaments.

Under the treaty, a supreme council made up of the nations’ presidents, prime ministers and heads of parliament would oversee the bilateral union as well as a joint budget set aside for common projects, Lukashenko said. The council, he added, would work toward adoption of joint border defenses, a common currency and possibly a unified constitution.

Yeltsin’s government and his Communist rivals welcomed the agreement, each claiming credit for inspiring it.

Russia’s Soviet legacy is an emotional issue in the race leading up to the June 16 presidential election. Many voters hurt by Yeltsin’s wrenching economic reforms are nostalgic for the Soviet Union, and they remember his role--along with those of the now-retired leaders of Ukraine and Belarus--in engineering its breakup into 15 separate republics.

Mindful of that nostalgia, Russian Communist lawmakers led a March 15 vote in the Duma, the lower house of parliament, to declare the union’s dissolution illegal and invalid, prompting Yeltsin to accuse them of seeking restoration of the empire by force.

Russian officials said the agreement with Belarus demonstrates to voters that Yeltsin is reasserting Russia’s influence over its neighbors through mutual agreement while the Communists just talk about doing so.

“The agreement will help those who work for re-integration by deeds, not by words,” said Viktor Konov, a spokesman for Chernomyrdin.

Gennady A. Zyuganov, Yeltsin’s Communist challenger and the acknowledged front-runner in the presidential race, called the pact “an important and timely step.”

“We can only be happy that the president and his team so quickly and efficiently reacted to the Duma’s decision,” Zyuganov said. “This is the will of the Duma, the will of the people. We want to live in peace and unity with all the republics of the former U.S.S.R.”

The sentiment around the old empire is by no means universal. Many presidents, including Leonid D. Kuchma of Ukraine and Eduard A. Shevardnadze of Georgia, denounced the Duma vote as a harbinger of Communist imperialism.

Eleven former Soviet republics, all but the three Baltic states, are joined with Russia in a loose post-Soviet group called the Commonwealth of Independent States, or CIS. Their strivings to build new nations with ties to the outside world have slowed Russia’s halfhearted attempts to turn the Commonwealth into a closer alliance like the European Union.

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Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm boss elected in 1994 to lead Belarus, is the only CIS president eager for a formal union with Russia. His 10 million compatriots were ill prepared for independence and have not developed a strong national identity. Their unreformed economy is far weaker than Russia’s.

For that reason, Lukashenko has been pressing to merge the two countries’ economies. Last year, he signed a customs pact abolishing border checkpoints with Russia, but he has met resistance to a common currency--mainly because it would mean costly subsidies from Russia to its western neighbor.

Lukashenko said the treaty would give the two nations’ joint council “very wide powers,” including a mandate to adopt a common currency within two years. He also said the new union would have its own “inter-parliamentary congress.”