Trade within EEU would grow by quarter if to remove non-tariff barriers

"If we removed all withdrawals from trade, including non-tariff regulation, we would have increased trade in the EEU by 25 percent,” Aleksey Kudrin, Chairman of the Board of the Center for Strategic Research (Russia), said at a conference of the Eurasian Development Bank today.

According to him, the EEU countries have many problems. Those measures and steps that have worked before, don’t work anymore. We need new ideas, the expert believes.    

"In this regard, Russia should boldly delegate its sovereign rights and powers to supranational bodies. We must abandon selfishness. For example, everyone remembers the story of Russia's introduction of anti-sanctions. After all, the Russian Federation did this without the consent of the partners in the EEU. Many countries didn’t support the idea. It turns out that we ourselves changed the regime without coordination, and now other countries have started using it in the framework of purely national egoism,” Aleksey Kudrin said.

The problem is also that from the total elimination of non-tariff barriers, the largest economies of the EEU – Russia and Kazakhstan will win the least.

"Yes, Russia and Kazakhstan will win the least. But they must take this step to demonstrate – we are serious about this union. One should admit other countries to the procurement system. But this will also benefit others, because Russia has the largest procurement market. But it must be done. If we don’t do this, then we need to disband and recognize that we do nothing to improve cooperation within the framework of the EEU,” he concluded.