Brussels, 11/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - Responding, at the St Petersburg Economic Forum, to foreign business leaders who had asked him to take measures to hasten Russia's accession to the WTO and to put in place a clearer legal framework, Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that the accession process would only advance “on terms acceptable to (Moscow)” and he was highly critical of the WTO, which he accused of being “archaic, undemocratic and rigid”. Noting, with a certain degree of cynicism, that the Doha talks “are in serious difficulty”, the Russian president also said: “It is precisely in the WTO's founding countries that there is protectionism”. “There is nothing surprising in seeing other alliances and regional trade agreements spring up,” he added. Acknowledging that his organisation needed to reform, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, who also attended the Forum, stressed that, “without Russia, the WTO is not really the multilateral institution it would like to be” and that, “without accession to the WTO, Russia still has not created the confidence capital” it needed to be able to develop.
On the sidelines of the Forum, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and Mr Lamy held discussions with Russian Trade Minister German Gref on measures to be taken to make progress in Russia's WTO accession talks. “We made good progress and Russia still hopes to conclude an agreement this year,” said Mr Gref after the meeting. Ms Schwab said she thought that accession was “technically possible” this year, but that the speed depended on Russia. Mr Mandelson, while backing rapid accession, said Moscow's plan to impose export duty on raw lumber, a measure which could have a harmful effect particularly on Finnish wood exports, was of “great concern”. “Any move to step back from the commitments Russia made in its deal with the EU in 2004 would be unwelcome,” he warned (for a review of the talks, see EUROPE 9422 and 9428). (eh)