In an exclusive commentary to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s team following the interview with the “Zhyttsio-Malina” YouTube channel, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s Advisor on Economic Reforms, Aleś Alachnovič, talks about Lukashenka’s debt and lenders as well as why Belarusians won’t need to fully repay the debt.
“We owe Russia 2/3 of the total external state debt – that’s over $10 billion”. However, it is highly likely that Belarus won’t have to repay all the loans: “We can initiate an international legal process to declare the loans Russia provided to Lukashenka, at least after 2020, as illegitimate. Because Lukashenka was not a legitimately elected leader of Belarus”.
As an example, Alachnovič mentions Ukraine. In 2013, Russia lent $3 billion to the then-president Yanukovych – as a reward for signing an agreement with the Russia-dominated Eurasian Economic Union instead of European integration. After that, the Maidan happened. “It’s been 10 years, Ukraine has challenged its obligations in courts and hasn’t returned a cent to Russia. So we won’t need to return all $10 billion”, concludes the advisor.
How can we build the economy of the new Belarus in a way that it no longer depends on loans? Aleś Alachnovič answers this question for Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s team:
1. If Belarus starts democratization, sanctions against it will be quickly unfrozen and then completely lifted. Private business will flourish again, foreign investors will reinvest withdrawn funds and invest new capital, which will trigger rapid economic growth.
2. Institutional reforms need to be implemented to increase economic efficiency. On the Ideas Bank website, you can find out about some of the necessary economic reforms. Among them are the restructuring and privatization of state-owned enterprises, labor market reforms, family and tax policy reforms, green economy, as well as pension reform.
