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Tuesday, 01.11.2011
Russia-s entry to WTO becomes real: EU urges Georgia
Moscow/Geneva. The for years postponed WTO entry Russia's could become reality by the end of the year. The EU more or less forced Georgia to agree to a compromise.
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Usually a country's entry to the World Trade Organization WTO can only happen when all other Member States have agreed to it. Any bilateral economic issues need to be resolved before an agreement can be reached.
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Russia has been able to achieve this in the last 18 years - this is how long the entry process has been running - with all interested States but Georgia: Since 2007 the Caucasus State is the only country that blocks Moscow's entry. At the same time, Russia, through 42 legislative packages brought its economic legal system to WTO standards.
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Sticking point: Trade across Georgia's border - without Georgia
Already before the brief Caucasus War in 2008, Russians and Georgians were in dispute over trade across the virtually open borders into its breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in line with the WTO.
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The recognition of the independence of the two mini-republics by Russia in 2008 did not make the situation easier: Russia sees the two Republics as independent Neighbor States while Georgia continues to insist that they are part of its own territory - and wants to be partially involved in controlling the borders.
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Georgia stopped playing poker
At yesterdays new round of negotiations under Swiss mediation in Geneva, Georgia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergi Kapanadse said, that his country would accept a “final compromise” suggested by Switzerland - and literally said:”The game is over”.
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Russia still needs to accept this proposal - and the Russian negotiation mediator Maxim Medwedkow asked for of few days to study it. Obviously Russia is in agreement with the solution as it did not reject immediately the Georgian suggestion according to the newspaper Kommersant.
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Europeans gave Tbilisi a last chance
The Russian newspaper as well as 'The Wall Street Journal' reported that the EU had pressurized Tiflis: No further compromise offer would be possible. Should Georgia again refuse then Russia would enter the WTO through simple majority of the votes - since this is also possible, though not customary.
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Electronic tax collection in the Caucasus
The compromise on offer is that a system electronically monitoring the flow of goods between the Russian borders to South Ossetia and Abkhazia would be installed. The presence of international observers is not provided for but Georgia will receive insight into the movement of goods. At the same time Russia is not required to define the movement as Russian-Georgian trade.
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As long as Russia is not finding any hidden stumbling blocks within the proposal the entry process could be completed by next week. A formal acceptance of Russia into the WTO would then be possible at the Minister conference in mid-December.
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Russia reaches its goal - but with little enthusiasm
In Russia the enthusiasm for WTO entry has been muted. Hardly anyone expects an economic miracle with the trade facilitation that would follow.
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WTO has lived without us and will continue to do so. Bu anyhow, it would be better if the country that produces most oil in the world would be a member of the organization, Vladimir Putin said just two weeks ago.
In the short term Russia could achieve an economic growth of 3.3 percent of GDP with entry to the WTO, Organization 2010 experts calculated.
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However, these very high optimistic figures are based on data from 2007 - and thus before the general downturn of the global economy.
Original German text can be found here >>>
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