First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov spoke at a roundtable as part of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on the subject, Regional Economic Associations – Competition between Integrations or a Path Towards Global Peace.
He said that the agreement on the Eurasian Economic Union, which is planned to be created on January 1, 2015, will not only be based on WTO principles, but also take into account the best OECD practices.
This is a very complicated task, he said. “This association ought to create a certain economic power that will be open for integration in other formats,” he said. This association will not use any uncivilised forms of behaviour; on the contrary, it will use OECD and WTO experience and perhaps come up with “something new, such as new civilised principles, which we are prepared to discuss both in the area of global trade and in the area of investment policy with our partners from the European Union, APEC and so on”.
According to Mr Shuvalov, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are by no means seeking to create any associations isolated from the world. He noted that the political integration is not discussed as part of economic integration between the three countries. “Nobody is sending signals that we are ready to form some political supra-nation institutions,” Shuvalov said, adding that only economic issues are under discussion. He stressed that the association “will be a very powerful economic player”, including on the grain and minerals market, and so on.
