The zone of non -free trade

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the suspension of an agreement on a free trade zone against Ukraine. This step is explained by “exceptional circumstances affecting the interests and economic security” of Russia. The decree begins on January 1, 2016.

Now, recall, Russia and Ukraine are part of the CIS free trade zone, so customs duties are reset to most of the positions. Moscow has repeatedly threatened the fact that after the start of the economic part of the Association of Ukraine with the EU, Russia will switch to the most favored nation regime in trade with Ukraine, which involves increasing duties to the level of the Unified EAEU tariff for goods imported into Russia. Which, however, should not prevent the rest of the EAEU countries, primarily Belarus, continue to trade with Ukraine in duty -free mode.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at the end of October explained that Ukraine cannot simultaneously participate in the free trade zones with Russia and with the European Union-there is a threat of re-export of European goods under the guise of Ukrainian. At the same time, the lack of duties on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, the Russian leadership, apparently does not bother.

The Association of Ukraine and the EU was signed in June 2014 and entered into force on November 1 of the same year. It was initially planned that the agreement would work at the same time, however, as a result of negotiations between representatives of the European Commission, Ukraine and Russia, the parties on September 12, 2014 agreed to delay the application of the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine until December 31, 2015.

Back in early December, it seemed that the authorities of the two countries could come to an agreement. On December 1, after the next round of negotiations, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin called the conditions of Moscow unacceptable. At the same time, the Minister of Economic Development of Russia Alexei Ulyukaev told reporters that they still managed to agree on some positions and two countries agreed to continue negotiations at the expert level. It was assumed that the next round of negotiations of ministers will be held on December 21, but now it is unclear whether all this makes sense.

Also in Russia, soil has already been prepared for introducing the ban on the import of Ukrainian products. The introduction of the food embargo was spelled out in August, when Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a government decree on the expansion of counter -sanctions on Albania, Montenegro, Iceland, Liechtenstein and, on special conditions, Ukraine. Special conditions are that the embargo on Ukrainian agricultural products will begin to act only if the economic part of the Association of Ukraine with the European Union enters into force. “But no later than January 1, 2016,” said the resolution of the Russian government.

At the same time, the statistics of the Federal Customs Service indicate that the turnover between the two countries is already sharply reduced without any trade wars. In the first three quarters of 2015, Ukrainian imports decreased by 2.1 times, to $ 4.2 billion (3.2% of all imports to Russia), export from Russia - 2.2 times, to $ 6.6 billion (2.5% of total export). In the first three quarters of 2015, Russia imported sanctions from Ukraine only $ 93.2 million.