The EU should take into account the decision of Kazakhstan and Belarus to commit to conditions agreed as part of Russia's accession to the WTO in its consideration of their applications to join the World Trade Organization, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
“Concerning the Customs Union and Single Economic Space, and our process of rapprochement with the European Union, we see no contradictions, I spoke about it today. First of all because we formulate the rules of the customs union and single economic space entirely, I’d like to stress it, we prepared and signed documents entirely on the principles of the World Trade Organization. Moreover our partners Kazakhstan and Belarus took the unprecedented decision and agreed that the terms and conditions of Russia's accession to the WTO would be taken by these states,” Putin said at a press conference following Russia-EU summit.
The accession package of the Russian Federation to the WTO was signed on December 16, 2011 at the Eighth Ministerial Conference of the world trade body. The Russian Federation becomes a member 30 days after the WTO is informed that the accession package has been ratified domestically.
