Last Wednesday, President Putin arrived in Kazakhstan to attend the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council. It's basically a summit of the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan, timed to the 5th anniversary of the EAEC. Right now, the common market of the five countries comprises 180 million people with free circulation of goods, services, capital, and labor force.
You'll get a chance to see all the details of the summit right after Vesti: News of the Week on Moscow, Kremlin, Putin.
Right now, you'll see an extract from Pavel Zarubin's report.
This is a first for the EAEC summit. Here's Nursultan Nazarbayev's sign, it's his seat. And here's the sign for the Republic of Kazakhstan. It's the seat of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. Both Nazarbayev and Tokayev got a clock.
- This one's good.
- Right.
- And this one's not.
Both clocks were set to tick simultaneously. But the real challenge is to make the other members of the EAEC act together in dealing with the key issues.
Putin, Peskov, and Ushakov arrived together in an Aurus limousine. They were working even on there way here. Russia proposes greater economic integration.
President Putin: “We can do this. We need to set up major corporations and work on entire manufacturing sectors in order to make better use of our competences and develop them.”
For Alexander Lukashenko, it's another opportunity to discuss controversial issues with his counterparts, which are pretty numerous, according to Belarus.
- What future awaits the Union? Will it be successful?
Alexander Lukashenko, President of Belarus:
- In brief, there's no other way. If we aren't successful, we're doomed. You see the kind of processes going on in the international arena. We have no other choice, other than tackling these issues together. We have great potential that we can utilize.
- Will we manage to resolve the controversial issues?
- There have always been and will always be controversial issues.
Important figures get mentioned. The joint GDP of the EAEC members has grown and already exceeds two trillion dollars. The integration brings pretty tangible benefits to the populations. An agreement on the rules of pension payments is being prepared.
President Putin: “We need to take into account the retiree's entire service record in any of the Union states. I believe this is very important for our citizens, for ordinary people, for someone who has worked all their life. It will no longer matter to the person or the authorities where exactly one worked. Once the agreement goes into force, the rights and interests of citizens of our states will be more fully ensured.”
The time's pressing. The situation in the world becomes more complicated and that is bound to impact the Union. We managed to ask Presidential Aide on Foreign Policies Ushakov if there's news regarding Putin's possible meeting with Trump.
- Has there been some formalization of the US proposal to meet or has it been quiet?
Yuri Ushakov, Presidential Aide: "No, so far we've got no signals from Washington, no"/
In the context of global politics and economy becoming more and more unpredictable, the EAEC needs to become competitive more than ever and to continue removing barriers.
Dmitry Peskov, President's Spokesperson: "We definitely have issues because the integration's close and advanced. And let's not forget that in general, it's been going by leaps and bounds. What the EU did in several decades, about 20 years, the EAEC did in five years"/
Moscow, Kremlin, Putin
