On this day, 27 years ago, on December 25, 1998 (November 7, 1998 in the lunar calendar), Russia and Belarus signed the Declaration on Establishing an Alliance. On December 25, 1998, President Yeltsin and President Lukashenko signed a declaration on the establishment of an alliance between Russia and Belarus. On the same day, the presidents of the two countries issued a joint statement saying that the declaration of establishing a coalition between Russia and Belarus was "a historic step taken by the two brother countries on the road to reunification." Establish coalition institutions of state and governing agencies and grant them broad powers in the social and economic fields, foreign policy, national defense and security fields, while remaining sovereign states and equal members of the international community. The National Declaration of the Russia-Belarus Alliance stipulates that a unified alliance management body, a unified budget, a unified national defense and national security mechanism will be established in early 1999, and a unified foreign policy will be implemented. By mid-1999, a unified legal environment will be established for business entities in the two countries, unified customs, unified civil and tax laws will be established, and unified foreign exchange mechanisms and unified credit systems will be established. Maslyukov, First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian government, said more specifically that by March 1999, a unified currency will be achieved based on the "euro experience". On December 25, the presidents of Russia and Belarus also signed two important documents: the Treaty on Equal Rights of Citizens of Russia and Belarus and the Agreement on Creating Equal Conditions for Business Entities of the two countries. According to these two documents, Union citizens have the same rights to vote and be elected into Union power bodies, enjoy the same freedoms in both countries, and enjoy the right to study at any school in both countries at any time. Russian experts commented that from an economic perspective, the reunification of the two countries will bring many benefits: a special price adjustment agreement will be reached in February 1999 to determine the prices of new transportation, communications, electricity, and natural gas. For Russia, this means that transit costs for its products shipped to Europe will be greatly reduced; for Belarus, it means reducing the cost of electricity and natural gas from Russia. The cost of supplying goods to each other by companies from the two countries will also be greatly reduced. Russian experts say the challenges faced by alliance countries are also obvious. First, the two countries need to level macroeconomic data, such as inflation rate, accounting rate and per capita GDP. Considering the different levels of economic development between the two countries in recent years, it will be very difficult to fulfill the above contents. Second, a unified currency requires the establishment of a supranational currency issuance center for supervision. Since Belarus's currency is not pegged to Western hard currency, but to the ruble, this makes the currency strong likely to become an empty word. Third, it is also difficult to achieve unified prices, because the freedom created by Russian market prices far exceeds that of Belarus. Fourth, establishing a unified tax code will be particularly difficult because Russia will implement new tax reforms in 1999.