Lukashenko says it is necessary to create a common energy market with Russia

Minsk and Moscow need to coordinate industrial policy, create a common energy market and carry out rational import substitution. This was stated by President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko during his speech at the meeting of the Supreme State Council of the Union State on December 6.

He called the realization of a common economic policy, ensuring equal rights of citizens in the Union space, a paramount task.

"The tools to solve this task are clear: coordinated industrial policy, common approaches to food security, common energy market, systematic achievement of technological sovereignty and rational import substitution," Lukashenko said.

The head of state specified that today Russia and Belarus are implementing only 27 import-substituting projects.

"For the united market of Belarus and Russia, the volume of which is estimated at $2 trillion in total GDP, this figure should be, I think, hundreds of times higher <...>. For the functioning of an equitable fair economic environment, we are counting on the early launch of the united market of gases, oil and oil products, we are working on these areas," added the president.

Lukashenko also noted that both Belarus and Russia will benefit from such projects, specifying that thanks to mutual cooperation in both countries, new jobs are created and new innovative products appear.

Earlier in the day, State Secretary of the Belarusian Security Council Alexander Volfovich said that Russia and Belarus should support each other in the international arena in terms of protecting the national interests of one and the other country. In a difficult moment, Russia will protect Belarus, and the latter will always support Russia in return. Wolfowitz pointed out that the situation around the two countries has changed radically. He called the security trends disappointing, noting that the West does not want to have a strong and independent structure next to it and provokes the SG to retaliate.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, said that Moscow and Minsk are in favor of equal security for all. He specified that the agreement on mutual security guarantees between the parties will be concluded in the interests of both countries. The document prescribes strategic objectives, while tactical nuclear weapons are out of the question.