The President of Belarus has signed the law on the ratification of the EAEU Treaty.

October 10, Minsk /BELTA/. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko signed the law on the ratification of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty on October 9. This was announced to journalists by the Head of the Presidential Administration Andrei Kobyakov, BELTA correspondent reports.

Andrei Kobyakov drew attention to the fact that the law fully reproduces the statement made by the head of the Belarusian state on May 29, 2014, in Astana, when the EAEU Treaty was signed, stating that Belarus would conscientiously fulfill its obligations under the treaty and take other measures for its implementation, provided that by that moment specific agreements on the removal of barriers, restrictions and exceptions in trade in certain goods and the provision of certain types of services, primarily concerning energy resources, assembly production output, liberalization of road transport and other sensitive positions, would be reached.

The Head of the Presidential Administration explained why the Belarusian side considered it necessary to repeat this statement during ratification. Thus, in the process of preparing the treaty, the parties reached an agreement that until 2025, during the functioning of the Eurasian Economic Union, certain exceptions and restrictions in mutual trade, sensitive for the parties, would be maintained, but they are strictly defined, and their periods of operation are agreed upon. According to Andrei Kobyakov, one of the sensitive positions for Belarus is the exceptions for hydrocarbons. "Belarus has always been a consistent supporter of the abolition of all exceptions and restrictions in all four freedoms of the Single Economic Space: movement of goods, services, capital, and labor. We have the most open economy among all the union countries, and we are maximally interested in ensuring that any type of trade, movement of capital and labor within this union is barrier-free," said the Head of the Presidential Administration.

According to him, the amount of this deduction in the conditions of 2014 is about $3.3 billion. "This is the volume of export customs duties on oil products sold, which are produced by Belarusian oil refineries and sold for export. This was the condition when back in 2010 Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan signed the relevant agreement on the Customs Union and the Single Economic Space, and agreed at the stage of the Customs Union and the SES that all export customs duties received from the export of oil products produced from oil that arrived at Belarusian refineries from the Russian Federation would be transferred to the Russian budget," Andrei Kobyakov recalled.

"Since, starting from January 1, 2015, we are entering a completely new stage of integration – we are creating the Eurasian Economic Union, then, accordingly, the Belarusian side also raised the issue with our partners that these deductions should not exist at all. But as we know, the parties have still come to the conclusion that these and other deductions will be maintained to some extent in depth and in size until 2025," Andrei Kobyakov continued. "But since the issue was very sensitive, the parties held special negotiations to somehow resolve this situation at the time of signing the treaty in Astana. As a result of the negotiations, it was decided that out of these $3.3 billion of export customs duties, $1.5 billion would go to the Belarusian budget, and the rest to the Russian one."

According to him, this was recorded in the relevant protocol of the agreement, which extended its validity until 2024 inclusive. "And the parties agreed that this distribution would be repeated from year to year, unless the parties give advance notice that they want to change something. Based on the fact that the issue of deductions continues until 2024 inclusive, the Belarusian side considered it necessary, and the President signed the statement that was adopted by the deputies today in the relevant law during the ratification of the treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union," said the Head of the Presidential Administration. -0-

News of Belarus (BELTA)