Opinions & Interviews

MOSCOW, 28 October (BelTA) – The Supreme Eurasian Economic Council session that took place in Minsk last week secured a serious advance in getting the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty ready. The statement was made by Viktor Spassky, Director of the Integration Development Department of the Eurasian Economic Commission, at the roundtable session held in Moscow on 28 October for experts and mass media to discuss the media image of the Union State of Belarus and Russia, BelTA has learned.

Viktor Spassky remarked that the final treaty will be ready in mid-2014. It will be a unique document, he said. The Eurasian Economic Union will give major economic preferences to all the participants of the project.

The Eurasian Economic Commission representative noted that upon the instruction of the presidents of Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan the Commission had analyzed the state of trade between the three countries and had found several hundreds of barriers in trade and economic relations. He reminded that the presidents want all these barriers removed by 1 January 2015.

“The Belarusian side takes an active stance on removing the barriers within the framework of the Customs Union,” said Viktor Spassky. He added that the removal of barriers will allow considerably raising the competitive ability of the Customs Union states with regard to the countries outside the Union.

As an advantage of being a Customs Union member Viktor Spassky mentioned the unified tariff policy. In his words, it has allowed rerouting some of cargoes bound for Europe from Ukraine to Belarus. Last year transit via Belarus rose by 11.7%.