Russian president: Uniform tariff on gas transit in the EAEU cannot be applied in the current level of integration

Uniform tariff on gas transit in the EAEU cannot be applied in the current level of integration, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at the session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Union held today in the video-conference format.

“As to the uniform tariff offered by our Armenian and Belarusian friends for gas transportation and transit, our opinion is that uniform tariff may be realized only on uniform market with uniform budget and uniform tax system. The Eurasian Economic Union has not reached such deep level of integration yet,” Russian president said.

He said Armenia and Belarus do not accept the common formula for EAEU countries on gas pricing offered by the EAEU Development Strategies by 2025.

“We have a formula backed by three countries: Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The point is that the approaches over gas pricing could have been defined later at the negotiations on formation of EAEU unified gas market. Our Armenian and Belarusian colleagues do not accept this formula yet. They have their own viewpoint over the issue,” Putin said, adding that if they could have reached consent over the issue there would have been no other impediments on approval of the Strategy.

“If the positions of our Armenian and Belarusian colleagues remain unchanged it would have been logical to exclude the gas provision from the draft Strategy in general. The discussion of approaches on gas pricing may be continued on the level of experts of member states of the Eurasian Economic Commission,” Putin said.