MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Leaders of the member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) have discussed no possible measures that can be taken after a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union comes into force from January 1, 2016, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said on Monday.
"We did not speak about any response measures. Today, explanations were provided about how Russia will act on the basis of the presidential decree and the federal law that is to be passed," he told journalists. "Other countries can either join this decision and it will be a common decision for the entire customs territory of the Eurasian Economic Union or this decision will employ certain monitoring instruments that will make it impossible to disguise Russia-bound exports as transit."
Shuvalov said it would be right if such a decision was taken by all the five member countries. "They said it would be right in principle if such a decision, such a common decision, could be adopted by all the five countries so that it could impose a common regime along the common outer perimeter of the customs border," he said when asked whether other EAEU leaders had announced any plans to withdraw from the free trade zone with Ukraine as well.
He said that it were rather technical aspects that hampered passing of this decision at the EAEU summit. "And questions. We should take a closer look at possible harm to the current contracts in Kazakhstan and Belarus," he said.
According to the Russian first deputy prime minister, the Russian delegation did not insist that these countries should adopt restrictive measures against Ukraine. "This is the matter of Russia-Ukraine relations under the free trade zone agreement," he said.
EAEU to set up system to control commodity movement after Ukraine’s association with EU
According top Shuvalov, a system of tracing commodity movement will be established by next summer.
"Tomorrow, the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission will have a meeting in Moscow that will be dedicated to the new edition of the Customs Code. It will be an extended meeting involving chief of customs services," he told journalists. "The presidents have delegated us to discuss the issue of establishing an electronic protocol covering the entire customs space."
"We have agreed to work out a mechanism of monitoring commodity movement, including transit of goods, as soon as possible. The first proposals will be voiced at tomorrow’s meeting," Shuvalov said.
He said that measures were to be taken to prevent Ukrainian goods’ reaching the Russian market disguised as transit. In his words, no restriction would be imposed of these goods if they were bound for other countries of the Eurasian Economic Union.
Russia plans no additional inspections of goods from Eurasian Economic Union
The official also said Russia has no plans of conducting additional customs checks of goods supplied from the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union after the agreement on association between Ukraine and the EU comes into force.
"We do not expect any additional checks, we think there are quite many of them," - he said. According to him, the number of such checks especially increased after Russian imposed counter sanctions.