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Black Sea Fleet Blocks WTO
By order of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine filed an application to the WTO secretariat for bilateral negotiations with Russia. After the Crimea visit of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the subsequent aggravation of Russia’s-Ukrainian relations, Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization may drag on for indefinite time.
Ukraine officially notified the WTO secretariat late Tuesday about the intention to hold bilateral negotiations with Russia. The general expectations had been that Ukraine would confine to joining multilateral negations within the working groups.
“We have not entirely expected this decision,” Alexei Portansky, who heads the Information Bureau for Russia’s Accession to the WTO, said yesterday. “The plans were that Ukraine joins the working group on Russia’s accession to the WTO, but I haven’t known that application was lodged already,” said Deputy Economic Minister Valery Pyatnitsky. According to the bureaucrat, the decision was probably made by “higher leadership of the government” without attracting the department, i.e. it was Yulia Tymoshenko that made the decision.
Apart from Ukraine, Russia is yet to complete bilateral negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Georgia en route to the WTO.
The list of potential economic claims of Ukraine to Russia is so long that in the team of Russia’s negotiations they prefer not to elaborate on it. But it is hardly the matter of trading issues alone. The relations of Russia and Ukraine clouded anew after the scandalous visit of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to Crimea and his statement challenging the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Indeed, the pride of Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov in the strength of the RF Black Sea Fleet may trigger the discussion about the export duties on crude oil that enables to maintain it. The current events could be viewed as a clear signal that Kiev will control the accession of Russia to the WTO.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of May 22, 2008
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