Speaker of Russian upper parliamentary house meets Belarussian President

Speaker of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, Sergei Mironov and President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus met in Minsk Wednesday to discuss issues of construction of the Russia-Belarus Union State. Sergei Mironov noted the similarity of the sides' stances on the union construction issues concerning the procedure of adopting the Constitutional Act and election of the union parliament. "We share the opinion that the Constitutional Act, which will fix the powers of the union parliament, should be adopted first and the election should follow," Mironov said. The national parliaments of the two countries have already passed the first reading of draft laws on election of the union parliament, he noted.