Duma Committee on CIS Affairs to address Eurasian integration

The State Duma on Friday, September 13, will adopt resolutions changing the name of its Committee on CIS Affairs and Ties with Compatriots. The committee will be renamed into the Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Ties with Compatriots. The idea was proposed by State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin to emphasise priority in the Duma’s work in the Commonwealth of Independent States. He said that Eurasian integration was “one of the strategic aspects of Russia’s foreign policy in the post-Soviet region.” “Speaking of the parliament, we are talking about serious and regular work to provide legislative support to the Eurasian project. We have created the standing forum ‘Eurasian Economic Perspective’, we have held two of its meetings, quite successfully, in St. Petersburg and Minsk, and we are preparing a third one in Kazakhstan. And this is what the Committee on CIS Affairs and Ties with Compatriots is doing, among other things,” Naryshkin said. Leonid Slutsky, who is the chairman of the committee, believes that changing the committee’s name is “necessary and timely.” “Our agenda includes more and more issues relating to Eurasian affairs, the Customs Union, the Common Economic Space, and the future Eurasian Economic Union,” he said.