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State Duma ratifies treaty on Kyrgyzstan’s accession to EAEU

Kyrgyzstan will become the fifth Eurasian Union member-country

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/. Russia’s State Duma has ratified on Wednesday the agreement on Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted to the lower house of the Russian parliament on June 25 the primary agreement and the related protocols - on the amendments to the underlying treaty on the EAEU, on the conditions and the transitional provisions and on Armenia’s accession to it. These protocols, the accompanying documents say, are an integral part of the "Kyrgyz" treaty.

The treaty signed in Moscow on May 8 is the basic document outlining the agreements on the terms of Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the EAEU. In particular, it specifies the transitional periods on the application of certain provisions of the union-related agreements by the republic. It envisages that beginning from the date of entry into force of the accession treaty Kyrgyzstan will use the single commodity classification of the EAEU external economic activity, and the common customs tariff will take effect after the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council takes a decision to cancel the customs clearance of goods and vehicles transferred across the Kyrgyz-Kazakh part of the state border.

The agreement also regulates the issues of compliance with a single trade regime and distribution of import customs duties.

"The treaty will be a powerful milestone in the development of the Eurasian Union, a real single economic space, said Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots. He noted that "Kyrgyzstan had travelled a difficult path towards joining the EAEU, but the country’s leaders showed strong will to become part of the Eurasian project.

Kyrgyzstan will become the fifth Eurasian Union member-country. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed a treaty on the EAEU in Astana on May 29, 2014, which came into force on January 1, 2015. Armenia joined the union last December.

The EAEU membership involves free movement of goods, capital and labor between its member-countries as well as the provision of services.