OREANDA-NEWS. November 18, 2011. Dmitry Medvedev, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Alexander Lukashenko discussed integration in the Eurasian region and signed a number of joint agreements.

The three presidents signed the Declaration on Eurasian Economic Integration, the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Commission, and the Resolution on the Eurasian Economic Commission Regulations.

Mr Medvedev, Mr Lukashenko, and Mr Nazarbayev gave a joint news conference following their talks.

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PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues,

This is a big event, an event that took us a lot of time and effort to reach. Today’s meeting indeed has every chance of becoming one of this year’s key occasions.

We have just signed the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Declaration on Eurasian Economic Integration, and the Regulations. This marks our latest and big step forward towards establishing the Eurasian Economic Union, the grouping that will unquestionably play a big part in shaping our countries’ future.

“Since the Customs Union began work it has already boosted our economies’ investment attractiveness and is encouraging economic modernisation, which is a paramount goal in today’s world.”

I want to start by thanking my colleagues. I thank Mr Nazarbayev, who, to be perfectly honest, was the initiator behind this whole idea back during the difficult 1990s, when the word ‘integration’ was seen as a leftover from Soviet-era vocabulary and a sign of poor taste. But for all of the obstacles in the way back then, Mr Nazarbayev spared no effort in his calls to build and develop integration in the post-Soviet area. This took a long time, but steady effort always helps to accomplish even the most complicated tasks. What we see today is the result of this work that went on at many levels, work the historic significance of which I hope will win the appreciation it deserves now and in the future.

I want to thank sincerely Mr Lukashenko for his persevering efforts to further integration and his energetic work throughout the Customs Union’s establishment, when he urged us to quicken the pace and assured us that we would succeed and settle all of the tasks ahead. This had a big influence on everyone taking part in the complex negotiations. Actually, it was Mr Lukashenko who proposed meeting today to sign these agreements. I hope he will not mind my divulging this information. He called me and said, ‘The plan is to sign the agreements in December, but this event is more important than the other matters on the December meeting’s agenda, so let’s hold the signing as a separate event. That way we can bring it forward and move straight on to the ratification procedures’. Mr Lukashenko called me, I thanked him, and Mr Nazarbayev also supported this idea.

And so I want to thank my colleagues sincerely for their hard work. I also want to thank all of our government colleagues who worked with such intensive energy over this difficult time, overcoming on the way the various bureaucratic hurdles such as exist in every country and coming up with the creative and at the same time compromise-based proposals that ultimately enabled us to conclude the agreements we have signed. This was a major undertaking. We have been steady and consistent in working towards our goals.

I remind you that as of July 1 this year, the Customs Union between Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia has been working in full-fledged operation. Work continues today to improve its mechanisms and strengthen its legal foundations. As I discussed just now with my colleagues, this union is not merely about making the paperwork easier, creating new organisations, or even simplifying regulations, but is something that has given a real and substantial boost to our reciprocal trade. Our trade is growing rapidly, which is very good to see. This was our goal, the objective we all pursued. Our aim is to make our economies work better.

“The next step is the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union by 2015. If the conditions are right we will move quicker.”

Starting on January 1 next year, the Eurasian Economic Commission will begin work and the package of international agreements on the Common Economic Space between Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia will enter into force. Our countries have made a commitment to try to complete all of the internal procedures required for the Treaty on Eurasian Economic Commission, signed today, to enter into force by the end of the year. In order to set a good example I will take the simple step now of sending the treaty to the State Duma. Right here and now before you I sign this letter to the Speaker of the State Duma proposing the treaty’s ratification.

The big priority for us now of course is to ensure free movement of goods, services, capital, and labour throughout our three countries, and work towards eventually carrying out coordinated currency and macroeconomic policy too, which was also something we discussed today. Since the Customs Union began work it has already boosted our economies’ investment attractiveness and is encouraging economic modernisation, which is a paramount goal in today’s world.

The next step (clear to all) is the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union by 2015. We discussed this too, today. If the conditions are right we will move quicker where possible. We will not run ahead of ourselves and take hasty or excessive steps, but where the opportunities exist we will move ahead faster.

We agreed today for the first time on establishing a supranational body, neutral with respect to all three countries, to which we will delegate increasing powers. This is a decision of major significance.

“Some of our partners in the Eurasian Economic Community and the CIS are showing interest in this new integration organisation. This proves that the trend towards multilateral cooperation on an equal and mutually advantageous basis is gathering strength.”

I particularly stress that the [Eurasian Economic] Commission’s decision-making mechanisms completely exclude the possibility of any one country dominating over another. This is a body in which all are equal. It will work effectively I hope, on the basis of market-based and democratic principles, and I hope it will draw too on the best of integration practice and experience around the world.

Life shows us that our multifaceted cooperation offers us a vast common resource, and this explains why some of our partners in the Eurasian Economic Community and the CIS are showing interest in this new integration organisation. This is good to see. It proves that the trend towards multilateral cooperation on an equal and mutually advantageous basis is gathering strength. We are open to all of course, open to everyone who realises the advantages we gain by pooling our potential, and we will work in this direction too, on the basis, of course, of the internal rules and regulations that we have only just adopted.

In short, I can say that this meeting was very important and lived up to our fullest expectations. We know how to reach agreements, know how to listen to each other, and know how to work out compromises. We have a genuinely positive spirit and working commitment. All of this guarantees that our economies’ integration, the integration of the Russian, Belarusian, and Kazakhstani economies, will continue to develop successfully in the interests of our countries and peoples.

Thank you.

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Excerpts from transcript of joint news conference following meeting of the presidents of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan

QUESTION: I have a question for the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan.

Mr Medvedev, you have said before that the European Union is the prototype for the integration projects you are pursuing. But along with its many positive aspects, the European Union is now going through a serious economic crisis. Do you not fear that the Eurasian Union could also encounter similar problems on its road?

Mr Nazarbayev, in 1994, you announced the idea of creating a Eurasian Union of countries. In what ways does what we see today differ from what you envisaged back then?

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: I do not have any particular fears. Our union is the result of long and careful consideration. Mr Nazarbayev listed a number of the world’s various integration groups just now, and Mr Lukashenko and I spoke about this too. Each group has its strong points and also its particular internal problems. There are not many real economic integration groups and unions in the world though. The European Union is certainly one of them, and in my view, despite the difficulties the EU and the Eurozone are going through today, it is nonetheless a very successful union that has made it possible to create a huge common market and raise a number of EU member countries that were only very middling in their development to a decent development indeed through integration and mutual help and support. I am not even referring here to the euro, which currently faces problems.

But let me repeat something I have said at the G20 meetings and other gatherings: if it were not for the euro, I do not know how the world would have coped with the crisis that broke out in 2008 if the dollar had been the only reserve currency. The euro’s current problems arise from the fact that it serves as the currency not just in stronger economies but also in substantially weaker economies or in economies in which particular problems and poor management have created difficulties.

We can avoid such problems in our integration. First, we are aware of what we are doing and know exactly who is becoming part of this Eurasian Economic Union and part of the economic space we are building. This is not some collection of disparate countries, whether the countries using the euro as a currency or the 27 EU members, but for the time being is a grouping of three countries, three countries that share a common history and past what’s more, and are developing along similar lines because we are all in the process of forming a new economy. We are fast-growing economies, even with the problems that our countries face. We are starting out not from different levels, but from a similar departure point, even though we realise at the same time that Russia’s economy is bigger than those of its partners.

But this is our conscious undertaking, and we know who the members of this union are. I do not want to say too much about the European Union, but in some respects they took on board unknown quantities. We are not in this situation. I am therefore confident that we will build a solid, effective and dynamically developing economic union. We have all the right conditions for doing this. As for future new members of our union, as I said, we are open, but this does not mean that any country, even from among our close partners, can simply join tomorrow. As Mr Lukashenko very rightly said just now, a work map should be drawn up for each prospective new member, a programme for accession, and this process might take place over a year or two, or maybe over 10 or 15 years, in order not to violate our economic interests and the interests of our union, of common space, and our future union, and also in order not to create difficulties for the prospective members. We will proceed carefully and take the European Union’s experience into account.

PRESIDENT OF KAZAKHSTAN NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV: In my article in newspaper Izvestia, I gave a detailed account of the history of my proposal to create the Eurasian Union, an idea that goes back to a speech I gave at Moscow State University in 1994. That was a time of collapse, a time when what had been a single country fell apart. We were all fragments of that whole, like pieces of a shattered plate. The result was complete stagnation. It seemed to me then that we were to make use of the things we had built up over those decades, the shared mentality and common economy, to somehow save our ordinary people from disaster.

Despite the years that have passed, my view has not changed. Any integration project begins above all with creating a common free trade zone, then a customs union, then a common economic space, and finally, an economic union with the eventual possibility of a common currency. This is the classic road that we are taking. We have established a free trade zone and a customs union, and we are now creating our common economic space. Most important of all is to give this economic space the full power and capacity it requires to get everything developing effectively, macroeconomic indicators and everything else, and then we can start putting the union in place.

Perhaps this is running ahead somewhat, but we discussed too, today, the possibility of moving over to conducting settlements in our own currencies when it comes to big trade deals, using the Kazakhstani tenge, the Russian ruble, and the Belarusian ruble between ourselves instead of the dollar. We buy dollars in order to settle accounts with Russia when we could do this using the tenge or the ruble. In other words, we are only at the start of all the possible exchanges we can conduct. Indeed, I envisage in the future establishing a common defence space (we have the CSTO working on this), a common technological space, common electricity networks (as we used to have), and a common resolution of food supply issues. We have been blessed with no shortage of energy supplies, at any rate.

All round, this is a very powerful grouping that brings together 170 million people: 144 million in Russia, 16 million in Kazakhstan, and more than 10 million in Belarus. With a population of 170 million this is a market with the kind of self-sufficiency to get by on its own if the need arise. This is what we are working towards, what we are proposing, and everything is moving in the right direction.