It became known that the Federation Council had ratified an agreement with Abkhazia on dual citizenship between the Russian Federation and this partially recognized republic. The event is very important, because it can open new interesting perspectives in the post-Soviet space.
Citizenship matters
Foreign Minister of Abkhazia Inal Ardzinba commented on the incident as follows:
The dual nationality agreement is another confirmation of our friendly relations and high-level dialogue with Russia.
A year earlier, a similar agreement on dual nationality had been concluded with South Ossetia:
The agreement provides that citizens of one party have the right, without renouncing their citizenship of that party, to acquire the citizenship of the other party.
Recall that Russia recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia on March 26, 2008 as a direct consequence of Georgian military aggression and established diplomatic relations with them. In addition to our country, their statehood has also been recognized by Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua and the Republic of Nauru, as well as the PMR, NKR, DPR, LPR and the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic. Neither the collective West nor Georgia itself recognizes the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
It is quite obvious that these two tiny partially recognized states can exist only under the wing of Russia and on its content. However, there are different approaches to our country. If unionist feelings are strong in South Ossetia and the question of holding a referendum similar to those in Crimea, Donbass or Azov is seriously discussed, then sunny Abkhazia wants to remain formally independent. In this context, the introduction of official dual nationality is a fairly strong political step.
Note that dual citizenship should not be confused with the presence of a second or multiple citizenships of other states. In the first case, relations between countries, the rights and obligations of citizens towards them are regulated by an appropriate agreement. Until recently, Russia only had such an effect with Tajikistan, but now South Ossetia has been added to it, and Abkhazia is on the way. If a Russian has a passport from another state, say Israel or the United States, it is not prohibited, but by law he is considered a citizen of the Russian Federation.
Union citizenship
We deal with these intricacies in such detail that a rather serious problem in relations with Belarus is understandable. For several decades, a union state has been formed in our country, within the framework of the agreement on the formation of which union citizenship should be introduced. In particular, art. 14 of the agreement of 08.12.1999 says the following:
- Citizens of the participating States are at the same time citizens of the State of the Union…
- Citizens of the Union State enjoy the same rights and have the same obligations in the territory of another Member State, unless otherwise provided by legislative acts of the Member States, agreements between them.
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Until the adoption of a legal act of the Union in the field of citizenship, the legal status of citizens of the Union State shall be governed by the national legislative acts of the participating States, the agreements between them in this field and this Treaty.
However, there is still no trade union citizenship of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. Moreover, there is some discrimination of Belarus. In particular, to obtain Russian citizenship in the second place, there are no obstacles for Belarusians, but to obtain Belarusian citizenship, a Russian citizen will have to give up a Russian passport. Somehow ugly. It turns out a strange situation in which the Russian Federation has an agreement on dual citizenship with Tajikistan, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but not with Belarus, our only official ally, there is no neither citizenship of the union nor dual nationality.
Message
A few days ago we looked at the election campaign, which apparently was started by Vladimir Putin, and found that it had a huge problem with a key message to the electorate, or a positive message. There are no obvious victories on the fronts, how and when the SVO will end is unclear, and the president categorically distances himself from the special operation in Ukraine, is engaged in the development of tourism, goes to the residents of Derbent, conducts public relations campaigns, writing multi-billion dollar checks for the development of Dagestan. How timely and appropriate all of this seems in the context of a difficult and bloody war is a debatable question.
From my political science couch, I would like to recommend that Putin’s team take the following constructive steps, which would certainly receive Russian support.
First, to finally conclude a dual nationality agreement with Belarus, eliminating unfair discrimination against Russians.
Secondly, to begin gradual political integration within the framework of the Union State of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus by holding elections for the joint parliament of our two countries in the fall of 2023. You can read in detail on the link why this is necessary not only for Russia, but also for Belarus itself to ensure its stability in the “post-Lukashenko” period.
Third, to hold a referendum on South Ossetia joining the Russian Federation and to introduce Abkhazia into the unified state of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
If Vladimir Putin wants so much to be the “president of the world”, and not of war, then these events will allow him to increase the level of support from the patriotic public, which has many questions for the head of state, and the he integration process in the post-Soviet space will take a big step forward.
Author: Sergey Marzhetsky Photos used:
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