Strasbourg, 19/06/2008 (Agence Europe) - During a visit to Moscow on Thursday 19 June with a view to the EU/Russia summit at the end of the month, Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson was to meet the main members of the new Russian administration, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin and Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina. Before his departure, Mandelson expressed optimism about the possibility that the EU and Russia would reach a bilateral agreement on access to the market for goods and services, opening the road to WTO accession by the Russian Federation by end 2008. “I remain optimistic about the opportunities ahead for the EU-Russia partnership. Economic liberalisation and convergence will form the bedrock of that partnership. We need to create a strong, overarching framework and we need to see Russia in the WTO”, the trade commissioner stresses in a press release. Russia's membership to the WTO and bilateral trade issues were to be the focus of talks on 19 June. While, for over a year now, talks for a bilateral EU/Russia agreement on market access, which is a necessary but insufficient condition for a go-ahead to WTO membership (see EUROPE 9630), have been making little progress, Mr Mandelson considers that accession is not only in the economic interests of Russia but also of the multilateral trading system. Also a former USSR republic, Ukraine has, during the first half of this year, become the 152nd WTO member nation, making Russia the main global economic power still to be waiting for entry to the multilateral organisation.
For several months now, the parties concerned have been stepping up their discussions in order to find a compromise on the thorny issue of export tariffs for wood, the main obstacle to concluding a bilateral agreement on market access. In an interview granted to Reuters on 17 June, Mr Mandelson assured that an agreement may be concluded this year, on condition that the export tariff dossier for wood and that on the ban of imports of Polish meat into Russia are resolved. “I certainly think we can secure agreement on Russia's accession by the end of the year”, the commissioner said with assurance. Concerning the ban on Polish meat imports into Russia for food safety reasons, Mr Mandelson said he regretted the measures taken by Moscow, describing them as “exaggerated”. “I am not even sure that it's justified and, either way, these issues need to be resolved as soon as possible. They are irritants, but they are not impediments to the negotiations on WTO”, he added. On the dossier regarding wood export tariffs, Mr Mandelson said he had been “taken by surprise” by the decision of the Russian authorities to apply, on 1 April, a new rise in tariffs in 2007, at the risk of complicating the process of accession to the WTO, as it runs counter to an agreement reached in 2004 between Russia and the EU, and greatly penalises the EU wood processing industry, as it does the paper industries of Finland and of Sweden. (E.H./transl.jl)