Translated material
Eight years to get ready
The US administration agreed to let Russia into the WTO
The United States has given its consent to Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO). A protocol on the completion of negotiations will be signed during the APEC summit in Hanoi on November 18-19. Friday's announcement that the negotiators had resolved all controversial issues was almost a sensation. Up to this point, the negotiation process had proceeded with such difficulties that many experts did not rule out that Russia would rather slam the door and walk out of the negotiations than be able to find a common language with the intractable Americans. It took Russia thirteen years to come close to the WTO threshold. Of these, eight of them Moscow negotiated with Washington.The details of the agreements reached, as usual, are kept secret. “The agreements with the United States are very balanced. We managed to find compromise solutions on all fundamental issues,” Minister of Economic Development and Trade German Gref told reporters. The head of the Russian negotiating delegation, Maxim Medvedkov, assured that the agreement reached with the United States is beneficial for Russia. “We have been negotiating with the United States for eight years, and during these eight years, of course, there were many problems. But I think that as a result we have reached an agreement that is beneficial for both Russia and the United States. These were tough negotiations, but the result turned out to be fair and favorable for Russia,” he emphasized.
According to Mr. Gref, compromises have been reached on the work of foreign banks in the Russian market and on agriculture. To protect intellectual property rights, the parties will sign an agreement in which Russia will undertake to regulate and enforce law in this area. This agreement is planned to be signed with Hanoi simultaneously with the protocol on the completion of negotiations, Mr. Gref said.
It was originally planned that the negotiations would be completed in July this year, during the G8 summit in St. Petersburg. The day before, Russian officials had already spoken of the signing of the protocol as a done deal. However, the issue of issuing veterinary certificates for pork and beef has stalled the adoption of a seemingly ready-made solution. Then the parties set a new deadline for themselves - negotiations must be completed by the end of October. A month later, German Gref intimidated the Americans - if the negotiations were not completed on time, Russia would withdraw from the meat agreement, thanks to which the United States holds first place in the Russian chicken market. At the end of October, the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade admitted that negotiations were already ongoing on a daily basis, but no one dared to make predictions about how and how they would end.
According to Vremya Novostei, an agreement was actually reached at the end of October. German Gref and US Trade Representative Susan Schwab initialed the document. “Having shook hands,” they informed Vladimir Putin and George Bush that the desired result had been achieved and now it was only necessary to determine the protocol details of signing the agreement. It should be noted that Mr. Bush, despite the emergency schedule of the congressional election campaign, specially met with Ms. Schwab and discussed in detail with her the details of the agreements. The US President was pleased that this process was completed to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.
However, this was not the case. Already on November 1, it turned out that Moscow had new questions related to the supply of American chicken to Russia. Although the day before, a member of the negotiating team, head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Sergei Dankvert, removed all questions regarding his industry, new installations arrived from the Ministry of Agriculture. According to a Vremya Novostey source, it took the negotiators more than a week to finally put an end to it.
Numerous observers are now trying to understand what political obligations Moscow has assumed in exchange for the WTO agreement. This formulation of the question is justified, because such agreements are indeed often an element of a political deal. This was the case, for example, in the case of the European Union: “in exchange” for an agreement with Brussels in May 2004, Vladimir Putin promised to accelerate Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. It took four months to fulfill this promise.
Now, in connection with the completion of Russian-American negotiations on the WTO, Iran is most often mentioned: Moscow is allegedly ready to toughen its attitude towards the Iranian nuclear program. Which looks unlikely from all points of view. After all, Moscow already has very limited influence on Tehran, and by taking a firmer position towards it, it will simply lose even its existing diplomatic leverage.
It seems that the success of the negotiations was the result of two circumstances that were initially quite difficult to count on - firstly, the consistently firm (despite tactical hesitation) Russian position and, secondly, the real desire of Washington and George Bush personally (which is not enough who believed) to achieve Russia's accession to the WTO. “At some point we got the impression that every new condition that the Americans put forward was just an excuse to drag out negotiations indefinitely,” says a senior Russian official. - And the main thing is that Putin got this impression. This, of course, did not help our negotiators much, but in Washington, in my opinion, they understood the position of our political leadership: if this continues, we will survive.”
This tactic reached its apogee in early September, when Russian Presidential Aide Igor Shuvalov told the press: “As I understand it, we have most likely reached the extreme point, the definition of extreme positions, and we cannot concede further in any areas.” Mr Shuvalov allegedly said then that the government might even go so far as to start negotiations with the US anew, with a clean slate.
It is noteworthy that if we evaluate the situation in recent months from the point of view of the political effectiveness of the authorities, then victory in any case would have been on Moscow’s side. If an agreement had not been reached, then the Russian authorities would have every moral right to say: we did everything we could to defend the interests of the domestic economy, but for America our conditions are unacceptable, and their conditions are unacceptable for us. But the Bush administration in the United States would probably have been sternly asked by both opposition Democrats and friendly oligarchs what the White House has been doing for so many years that it has not been able to achieve results.
Among those who could “ask” are the heads of the largest American corporations, who on October 24 sent a collective message to Bush and Putin asking them to finally sign an agreement. Among the signatories were, for example, the heads of Shell, Chevron, Ford and Boeing. Upon learning that the goal had been achieved, the president of Chevron Neftegas Inc. Ian MacDonald made a special statement: “On behalf of Chevron Corporation, I would like to sincerely congratulate the Russian Federation and the United States on successfully agreeing on the terms of Russia’s accession to the WTO. As you know, Chevron actively worked with the US government to implement these plans. Our main efforts will now be aimed at achieving early approval by the US Congress of a regime of normal trade relations with the Russian Federation. Chevron looks forward to many years of fruitful cooperation with Russian companies.”
By the way, the end of the negotiations will provide another unprincipled, but very pleasant plus. Now Washington will be forced to repeal the notorious Jackson-Vanik Amendment. “Any country that is a member of the WTO, the United States must provide a regime of “permanent normal trade relations,” and for this the amendment must be repealed,” Andrew Sommers, head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, told Interfax. “If this does not happen, Russia will not cease to be a member of the World Trade Organization, but the United States will violate WTO rules,” he said. In any case, the “efforts” promised by the head of Chevron to work with Congress will now come in very handy.
Strictly speaking, reaching agreements with America is very important, but not the only condition for joining the WTO. Russia has not yet completed negotiations with Moldova, Georgia and Sri Lanka. True, Moscow does not consider the lack of agreements with these countries a serious problem. There are no negotiations being held at all with either Georgia or Moldova. It should be recalled that Georgia gave its consent to Russia’s accession back in 2004. But this fall, after Russia began a transport blockade, Georgia withdrew its signature, recalling to Moscow the ban on the import of Georgian wines and Borjomi. Moldova, although it did not formally give its consent, had not previously presented any demands, and Russian negotiators believed that it would simply put its signature on the document. However, the ban on the import of Moldovan wine to Russia forced this country to reconsider its attitude to the problem and declare its disagreement with Russia’s accession to the WTO. However, Moscow has a different opinion on this matter. “We are part of a free trade zone, we do not have tariffs in mutual trade (with Georgia and Moldova - Ed .), so the problems that we have with them relate only to systemic issues that we will discuss as part of the negotiations in Geneva on the report of the working group,” said Mr. Medvedkov.
The only issue that remains to be resolved with Sri Lanka is the terms of import of Ceylon tea, after which the path to the WTO will be open. But before joining, we still need to complete multilateral negotiations, which, according to the minister’s estimates, will take us another six months. “Negotiations are ongoing with all partners in the WTO, and here Russia still faces about ten difficult issues,” noted German Gref. Thus, by the summer of 2007, the cherished doors should finally open to Russia.