Belarusian "parliament" disregarded Customs Code

The issue won't be discussed until Lukashenka meets with Russian President Medvedev.

A regular session of the "chamber of representatives" has started today. In the approved agenda the issue of the Customs Code is absent, though on June 8 the commission on international affairs and ties with the CIS studied the draft law of Belarus "On ratification of the Customs Code of the Customs union" and recommended the "chamber of representatives" to pass it.

The date of consideratio of this decision has not been scheduled by the commission, but as Radio Svaboda found out on the sidelines of the session, the issue won't be considered as a meeting of Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Dmitry Medvedev is expected in the near future, so the "deputies" are to return to this topic after the meeting of the two leaders.

As the session of the "chamber of representatives" is scheduled for Monday, and there was no session planned previously, it could be possible that Medvedev and Lukashenka's meeting is to take place before June 14.

We remind that Russia and Kazakhstan are set to launch the Customs Code of the Customs Union on July 1 on a bilateral basis. Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin told about that after talks with his Kasakh counterpart Karim Masimov on May 28 in St Petersburg. The head of the Belarusian government Syarhei Sidorski did not arrive to the talks.

Putin also said that Russia and Kazakhstan are to join the WTO in two, in case Minsk won't join the agreements of the Customs Union. "As soon as Belarus finishes to coordinate internal legal procedures, I hope it will sign documents at that moment immediately, and we would proceed in trilateral format. If joining won't take place, we would move in tandem," stated the head of the Russian government.