Prospects for Russia's Accession to WTO Remain Uncertain
September 23, 2009
World Trade\Interactive
Prospects for Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization remain unclear after U.S. and Russian officials discussed the matter Sept. 21. Moscow’s 16-year-old bid to join the WTO appeared to move forward earlier this year when U.S. and European officials said progress had been made and the process could be finalized by the end of 2009. Shortly thereafter, however, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made a surprise announcement that Russia was abandoning its solo bid and would now seek to join the WTO a part of a customs union with former Soviet republics Belarus and Kazakhstan. In the months since, there have been conflicting reports as to whether Moscow does indeed intend to take such an approach, and remarks made by top Russian officials recently have done little to clarify the issue.
According to a press release from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, USTR Ron Kirk and Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov discussed a range of multilateral and bilateral trade issues in Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, including concerns regarding U.S. exports of agricultural products, Russia’s protection of intellectual property rights and licensing procedures for certain information technology products. With respect to Russia’s WTO accession, Kirk welcomed “the prospect of renewed engagement with Russia … following a period of uncertainty regarding Russia’s intentions” and said the U.S. “continues to support Russia’s individual accession”; i.e., not as part of a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Kirk said the U.S. “will continue to provide constructive support to achieve that goal” but added that “progress in these multilateral negotiations has always depended and will still depend on Russia’s dedication and work toward that end.”
Kirk’s comments were more cautious than those of Shuvalov, who suggested that there are only a few outstanding issues on which the two sides could quickly work out a compromise. In particular, he cited IPR, where Russian lawmakers are moving to revise laws to address U.S. concerns on piracy; sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, particularly restrictions on Russian imports of U.S. meat; export controls on encryption technology; and the treatment of Russian state-owned enterprises in U.S. courts. “We believe ... we can finalize these issues very quickly, maybe a few weeks,” Shuvalov stated, and Monday’s talks with Kirk “let us think that we can achieve our accession, maybe next year, if we all work together.” However, Inside US Trade pointed out that these are not the only issues left to be resolved for Russia’s accession bid to go forward, as other countries have raised concerns as well.
While Shuvalov also reiterated that Russia wants to join the WTO in conjunction with Belarus and Kazakhstan, with whom it will establish a customs union effective Jan. 1, 2010, he appeared to leave open the possibility that this may not happen. According to a CongressDaily article, Shuvalov “said the three countries are applying separately, but they expect their accession would be approved at the same time.” Inside US Trade reports, however, that Shuvalov “said that the three nations have agreed to form a single negotiating team headed by lead Russian WTO negotiator Maxim Medvekov to ‘synchronize’ their accessions.” A Bloomberg News article cited Shuvalov as saying that while Russia wants to join the WTO “on the same terms and at the same time as [the] other former Soviet republics,” it is “possible that the leaders may change their plans.”
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