Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty in Astana on May 29. Experts have described the benefits that the EaEU could offer to citizens, business and international economic cooperation.
Tatyana Valovaya, the minister for integration and macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission, emphasized the role of the EaEU as a long-term integration project that had been under formation for two decades. She noted the positive changes the project will make for Russian, Belarusian and Kazakh citizens: “First of all, the Eurasian Economic Union is a confirmation that the course to form a powerful integration community is becoming irreversible. It is clear that only economies incorporated into large integration networks can succeed in the modern global economy. Not a single large country, regardless of its size, can expect efficient economic interaction alone. It needs partners. Past years show that integration has become the impetus of our economic growth. It minimizes risks of instability on global economic markets. It is the guarantee of further successful economic development. That is the general systemic side.
Secondly, it is because our union is economic, is focuses on economic cooperation. New economic prospects are opening for citizens of our countries working in companies, owning companies and managing business. The biggest prospects are opening for small and medium-sized business, because many things need procedures. They were absent within the framework of forming the Customs Union of the Common Economic Space. Now, we are minimizing problems in the sector again. We have declared for the first time that we will be forming common markets in different sectors of services. This is very important for our business too.
Thirdly, citizens of our countries will certainly feel the benefits of free choice of workplace. It is very important not only for citizens coming to work in Russia. High-skilled Russian specialists are needed in countries of the Customs Union. It is the highest scale of mobility, lack of restrictions, registrations, quotas, recognition of diplomas (we have improved procedures for automatic recognition of diplomas), social protection.”
Andrey Slepnev, the minister for trade of the Eurasian Economic Commission, paid special attention to the positive effect of the EaEU market on the economies of its member-states: “Today, there are negotiations on free trade with a set of states. The council decided to form a joint research group with India. Today, we are having consultations with the Indian side, we expect decisions from the new government formed after the latest elections concluded in May. We hope that we would declare functioning of a such research group together with our Indian partners in the next couple of months. It should result in a report describing all aspects of trade, regimes, prospects and recommendations connected with the negotiations. As a conclusion of the group’s work, decisions will be made to switch to the negotiation state and then signing of an agreement. We cannot predetermine the outcome of the group’s work.
A similar group has been formed with Israel. Here, we see good prospects and good projects that can help develop our cooperation. We have good negotiations with Vietnam. We hope that they will have a positive conclusion quite soon. Negotiation courses that were started with the European Free Trade Association and New Zealand a few years ago remain frozen on the initiative of our partners. We take it as a certain political demarche over the well-known events. We see very many countries willing to develop integration with the Eurasian Union today. It is not surprising. The EaEU is the greatest integration association, an enormous market that has not been fully realized by exports of other countries. We have receive over 30 such bids and we see that the number of bids is greatly exceeding our negotiation potential, but we will be developing approaches for priorities of this work in a dialogue with our partners.
