Customs Union: Plans and Realities (Anatily Sirotsky)

Раздел - "Международные отношения"The article is devoted to the issues of the development of the Customs Union of Belarus and Russia, which is regarded to be first form of integration cooperation within the framework of their short history. The author evaluates the results achieved and recognizes indisputable advantages of integration of the two countries in the sphere of regulation of foreign trade, customs legislation unification and formation of a single customs policy towards the third coundtries. Meanwhile, the author draws attention to serious barriers on the way of the formation of a valid Customs Union, which are due to some unresolved legal political and organizational problems. The process of allembracing integration presupposes not merely the unification of customs legislation but their full conformity. The author believes that it is necessary to transform the Parliamentary Assembly into a legislative body of the Union of Belarus and Russia, which could pass laws of direct action in the customs sphere as well. In this case frequent retreats from agreements, that were developed in coordination, could be avoided. The article analyses the formation process of the single customs union regarding such issues as: adoption of a common customs tariff, concluding of a single excise duty policy and the uniform fixation of the VAT. The article concludes in grounding the main directions of further work on formation of a single customs territory: tariff and non-tariff external foreign trade regulation, payment and settlement relations, currency control and customs organization