Putin seeks union of ex-Soviet states
Source: Agencies |
October 5, 2011, Wednesday
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RUSSIA'S Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants to bring ex-Soviet states into a "Eurasian Union" in an article which outlined his first foreign policy initiative as he prepares to return to the Kremlin as the country's next president.
Putin said the new union would build on an existing Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan which from next year will remove all barriers to trade, capital and labor movement between the countries.
"We are not going to stop there and are setting an ambitious goal - to achieve an even higher integration level in the Eurasian Union," Putin wrote in an article in yesterday's Izvestia newspaper.
Putin said last month that he would run in the March 2012 presidential election and his current public approval ratings show he is set to win.
Putin's initiative comes as Russia nears the end of its 18-year-old negotiations to join the World Trade Organization. In the article, Putin made no secret of his skepticism about the global trade watchdog.
"The process of finding new post-crisis global development models is moving forward with difficulty. For example, the Doha round (of international trade talks) has practically stopped. There are objective difficulties inside the WTO," he wrote.
In 2009, Putin threw Russia's bid to join the WTO into disarray, saying Russia would instead form the Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Putin, who once called the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991 "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," said his new project would not resemble the Soviet Union.
"It would be naive to attempt to restore or copy something from the past. However, a stronger integration on a new political and economic basis and a new system of values is an imperative of our era," Putin wrote.
Putin said he saw the new union as a supra-national body which would coordinate "economic and currency policy" between its members. It would also be open to new members.
Putin said the Customs Union would expand to take in central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
He also made a veiled criticism of Ukraine which chose to stay outside the union citing its commitment to European integration. Some of Russia's neighbors were unwilling to commit to integration because this appeared to contradict their decision to build ties with Europe.
But this was a wrong choice, he wrote. He argued that the Customs Union and in future the Eurasian Union would be the European Union's partner in talks over the creation of a common economic space, guaranteeing its members a stronger voice.
Putin said the new union would build on an existing Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan which from next year will remove all barriers to trade, capital and labor movement between the countries.
"We are not going to stop there and are setting an ambitious goal - to achieve an even higher integration level in the Eurasian Union," Putin wrote in an article in yesterday's Izvestia newspaper.
Putin said last month that he would run in the March 2012 presidential election and his current public approval ratings show he is set to win.
Putin's initiative comes as Russia nears the end of its 18-year-old negotiations to join the World Trade Organization. In the article, Putin made no secret of his skepticism about the global trade watchdog.
"The process of finding new post-crisis global development models is moving forward with difficulty. For example, the Doha round (of international trade talks) has practically stopped. There are objective difficulties inside the WTO," he wrote.
In 2009, Putin threw Russia's bid to join the WTO into disarray, saying Russia would instead form the Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Putin, who once called the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991 "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," said his new project would not resemble the Soviet Union.
"It would be naive to attempt to restore or copy something from the past. However, a stronger integration on a new political and economic basis and a new system of values is an imperative of our era," Putin wrote.
Putin said he saw the new union as a supra-national body which would coordinate "economic and currency policy" between its members. It would also be open to new members.
Putin said the Customs Union would expand to take in central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
He also made a veiled criticism of Ukraine which chose to stay outside the union citing its commitment to European integration. Some of Russia's neighbors were unwilling to commit to integration because this appeared to contradict their decision to build ties with Europe.
But this was a wrong choice, he wrote. He argued that the Customs Union and in future the Eurasian Union would be the European Union's partner in talks over the creation of a common economic space, guaranteeing its members a stronger voice.
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