Deputy PM Shuvalov: EurAsEC format is outdated

The work format of the EurAsEC community has become outdated lately, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told an international conference on the Eurasian integration on Friday. “Presently, all discussions are mostly on the platform of the Eurasian economic commission,” he said. “In the past now are the negotiations in the framework of the “five”, and consequently, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have quit those dialogues.” Presently, the discussion is about Kyrgyzstan’s joining the dialogue. Shuvalov said, Russia was supporting development of relations in the framework of the CIS. But a decision from heads of the countries on a “different-speed” integration allows some to be moving quicker, and we are ready to the fact that on January 1, 2015 we may launch a United Economic Union, he said. “Recently, we have received a letter from Ukraine about its format in the Customs Union,” Shuvalov said. “But a membership may not be partial.” If from 2015, the Eurasian Union is organised, we “shall have an understanding how to make this membership,” he added. The Eurasian Union is due to be ready by May of 2013 in order to launch a mechanism of discussions and ratification, and so that from January 1, 2015 the sides “lived under a new agreement,” Shuvalov said. “We have suggested Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan sent observers to the Eurasian economic commission, if they are interested in joining it,” the deputy prime minister concluded.