Brussels, 25/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - It is on a note of optimism that, on Friday, Commissioner Pascal Lamy closed two days of talks in Moscow on conditions for the country's acceding to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Furthermore, whereas bilateral negotiations had been stuck for six months at technical level, the Union's chief negotiator said that he had received a "rather constructive signal" from Prime Minister Michael Kasyanov and Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin. My arrival in Moscow "broke the deadlock in the situation", and, now, "we are engaged in a negotiating process after three months in which not much happened on the Russian side", said Lamy. "One enormous problem", however, remains, in the telecommunications sector, which is "reasonably open", but where Russia now wants to backstep, notably be reintroducing a ceiling on foreign shares in operators, he added, stipulating that "it simply cannot be discussed". In addition, the price of energy resources, as well as market access to the insurance sector and retail sales are among the stumbling blocks in these negotiations, as well as the banking sector where Europeans have the feeling that things are regressing. Mr. Lamy explains these attempts at backstepping in relation to the current state of Russian market openness by a "mixture of tactics, well felt interests and legitimate concerns"