S. Maskevich: Customs Union will start working in any case

The fact that member-countries joined the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan at different times will not impede full-fledged work of this union, stated S.Maskevich talking to journalists.

The fact that member-countries joined the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan at different times will not impede full-fledged work of this union, stated S.Maskevich talking to journalists.

The Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan should come into effect on July 1^st, but the Belarusian side hasn’t ratified relevant agreements yet. Meanwhile, according to Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the Republic of Belarus Alexander Surikov, in case Belarus doesn’t join the Customs Union, Moscow is ready to restore the customs border with Belarus.

S. Maskevich also noted that full-fledged work of the Customs Union is possible even if not all its members join the WTO. At the same time he confirmed the aspiration of Minsk to join the WTO as soon as possible.

Commenting on the gas dispute, S.Maskevich stressed: “We, as deputies, regret about what happened”.

According to S. Maskevitch, the conflict “won’t be of benefit to Russian-Belarusian development and, moreover, to union formation. At the same time the parliamentarian has expressed confidence that in future such disputes will occur less and less.

“There will always be some forces and particular people whose interests run counter to the interests of nations,” noted S.Maskevich, commenting on possible causes of the dispute. But “union formation meets the interests of Russians and Belarusians,” added the deputy.

Speaking about the tasks within the near-term outlook, S.Maskevich said that at present deputies “should focus on pursuing numerous pragmatic issues related to unification of standards and harmonization of legislation”. “That is, on establishing clear relations between economic entities as well as between the states,” he resumed.