Will Belarus get into free trade zone with EU?
The EU offers Belarus participation in the "Eastern Partnership" trade projects. Unexpectedly, none of them has interested the authorities so far.
The European Union is ready to sign agreements on creating free trade
zones with the countries-participants of the Eastern Partnership program
as soon as they are prepared for it. Also, they are supposed to fulfill
all the necessary terms and conditions. Moreover, the European Union is
ready to grant total freedom to entrepreneurs in the service sector.
This was stated by the head of the European Commission Representation
in Poland Ewa Synowiec at the conference "Eastern Partnership: Strategy for 2011 and Beyond" in Lublin.
Ewa Synowiec: “We
are ready to offer, in the first place, total freedom to organization
of firms at the territory of the EU. We also prescribe to provide the
100% access to the EU markets in some sectors and with regard to certain
types of services. However, in this case the partner states will have
to accept and adapt the European Union's regulations. It is important to
understand that the market of financial services is approached in this
very way”.
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This
means, the whole legislation of the partner states should correspond
with the EU's legislation. Let us remind you, six countries participate
in the "Eastern Partneship" program: Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia,
Georgia and Azerbaijan.
If the EU has started talking about the
"total freedom for organization of firms" just recently, free trade
zones have been discussed since a long time ago. However, Belarus has no
chance to participate thereof yet. There are two reasons for that, says
Ewa Synowiec. First, all the trade in the EU is regulated by WTO's
legal frames. Belarus is not the WTO member, and this makes it
impossible to legalize relations between our country and the EU in the
sphere of trade. In addition to that, Belarus has not even expressed any
interest to the suggestion to create a free trade zone, while other
countries make so many efforts to realise this EU's project. Ukraine,
for instance, is very close to creating such a zone.
Ewa Synowiec: “As
for Belarus, we haven't even discussed the possibility of negotiations
with regard to variants of an agreement. We haven't even ratified the
agreement on partnership and cooperation”.
The agreement, besides, was prepared in the early 90s of the previous century. However, the Belarusian side failed to sign it.
It
may seem possible to live and trade successfully without these
agreeements. According to the official data, Belarus' trade with the EU
makes 40% of our country's foreign trade. However, an economist Aliaksandr Chubryk warns not to be overexcited in this regard.
Aliaksandr Chubryk : “Apart
from Ukraine and Georgia, all the partner states have approximately
42-43% of trade with the EU. However, if we exclude oil and oil
products, we'll see that the share of export to the EU of, for instance,
Belarus and Azerbaijan, considerably decreases”.
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In
case our country suddenly loses an opportunity to sell energy products
to the EU in the same scope as before, then our "big" trade with the
West will become just a faint memory.
The expert of the Belfast Royal University Alena Hnezdzina
commented upon this prognosis and noted that the "free trade zone
agreement" not only provides an opportunity to increase the trade
scopes. It stimulates economic reforms in the first place, which would
lead to life level increase by 4% in a very short period of time,
according to the specialists' calculations.
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Euroradio
has asked the experts whether Belarus' membership in the Customs Union
will create obstacles on its way to such economic European integration.
To the opinion of Aliaksandr Chubryk, we should better think of how long this Customs Union will exist.
Aliaksandr Chubryk: “Belarus
has not acquired what it wanted to acquire with the help of the Customs
Union. That is, cheap energy products. We don't have them. So now it is
obvious that if we become a member of a free trade zone, we will get
much more advantages than if we remain in the Customs Union. So it seems
to me the existense of the Customs Union is not such a big problem
today”.
Poland's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs reminded,
in his turn, that his country would be the EU President in 2011. He
promised that Poland would do everything to involve Belarus into the
European integration processes. The most important thing is that there
should be a correspondent political will of the official Minsk.