Brussels, 10/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - Moscow, which has come under fire from Brussels over its restrictive measures, is attacking European energy legislation.
According to the Russian ministry for economic development, the EU and Russia have started negotiations at the WTO over their trade disputes. “The two partners have differing visions on the adoption of several reciprocal measures which, from their point of view, are not part of their obligations to the WTO”, a senior official in the Russian ministry, Maxim Medvedkov, explained, quoted by the Russian press agency Interfax. The European and Russian negotiators met in Geneva on 6 and 7 December.
On the European side, Commissioner Karel De Gucht reiterated his criticism, on 5 December, over Russia's failure to respect its commitments to the WTO, in reference to the Russian decree on recycling costs for imported vehicles, the ban on imports of live animals from the EU, the Russian decision to increase the level of customs duty on hundreds of imported products and keeping in place high procedural costs to export wood with lower customs duties than those laid down in a bilateral agreement prior to the country's accession to the WTO. “We want to see these problems resolved as quickly as possible”, De Gucht warned on Wednesday, not ruling out an appeal to the dispute settlement body of the WTO.
Russia, for its part, is concerned about EU anti-dumping measures and restrictions on the transit of some of its chemical products. In particular, Moscow is continuing to challenge the third legislative package of the EU for the liberalisation of the internal energy market, a matter it is planning to bring before the WTO. Since its adoption in 2009, Moscow has refused to comply with the requirements of the third package, which calls for the separation of energy operators' supply and transport activities (unbundling), which would therefore force the Russian gas company Gazprom to modify the structure of its assets in Europe. The row over this dossier took a turn for the worse in early September with the Commission's launch - following a complaint by Lithuania - of an investigation targeting the Russian gas company for abuse of dominant position and price manipulation in several Central and Eastern European countries that are highly dependent on Russian gas supplies.
Russia joined the WTO in August of this year after 18 years of negotiations. (EH/transl.fl)