Official website of the President of Russia

News   /

Taking part in the session were President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan and Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan. Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and representatives of Ukraine took part in the discussion as observers.

The heads of state discussed practical interaction in forming a fully-fledged customs union and creating a common economic space. The participants paid particular attention to coordinating actions in the process of accession of the EurAsEC member states to the WTO and to forming a common customs tariff.

The session discussed the documents setting down the rules of admitting new members to the Community and granting observer status with EurAsEC, the Statute on the Interparliamentary Assembly and some other coordination matters. On Mr Putin’s proposal, Nursultan Nazarbayev was re-elected as Chairman of EurAsEC.

After the talks the participants in the summit held a joint news conference. Commenting on the results of the consultations the Russian head of state said that the parties had reached a consensus on the need to coordinate their positions when joining the World Trade Organisation. According to Mr Putin, everybody agreed that the acceptable conditions were those for which Russia was bargaining for itself because it was better placed to negotiate than other countries owing to its economic might.

The President did not rule out cooperation between EurAsEC and the European Union. He believes it is also in the interests of the European Union, because EurAsEC has good energy and transport potential, markets and production facilities – not only commodities, but also high technologies. At the same time, Mr Putin admitted that for now EurAsEC was not to be compared with the European Union which had traversed a long path of integration.

The creation and development of EurAsEC, the Russian President stressed, was necessary in order to keep up with the processes of globalisation of the world economy and jointly offer competitive goods to international markets. He noted that after the breakup of the USSR much had been lost, and many ties had to be restored. Meanwhile EurAsEC removes many barriers standing in the way of cooperation.

Mr Putin also told the news conference that the text of the Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions, which will be the main document to be signed during his meeting with George Bush in Moscow, has by and large been hammered out. The Russian President noted that the agreements would have been hard to achieve without the commitment of the US Administration and the attention of President Bush. He added that he was pleased with the joint work.