Kazakhstan has excluded common citizenship, common foreign policy and common border security from the Treaty establishing the Eurasian Economic Union, declared the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Samat Ordabaev at yesterday's press-briefing, Tengrinews reports.
"Initially a very large draft treaty was offered, almost 2000 pages. It contained provisions that would regulate all the aspects of life in our countries if the document were adopted in its initial wording. It contained provisions like political cooperation, common citizenship, immigration policies, visa policies, security issues ... It was due to a consistent position of Kazakhstan that the provisions like common citizenship, common foreign policies, inter-parliamentary cooperation, passport and visa procedures, common protection of borders and etc. were excluded," Ordabaev said.
In its current wording the draft Treaty takes into account all the national interests of Kazakhstan. "All these issues are regulated by multilateral documents, there is no more legal vacuum. The treaty will deal with economic issues only,” he said. "The decision was made, with our interests taken into consideration, that a supranational body will be regulating economic issues only, no polices," the Kazakhstan Vice-Minister explained.
Kazakhstan has excluded common citizenship, common foreign policy and common border security from the Treaty establishing the Eurasian Economic Union, declared the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Samat Ordabaev at yesterday's press-briefing, Tengrinews reports.
"Initially a very large draft treaty was offered, almost 2000 pages. It contained provisions that would regulate all the aspects of life in our countries if the document were adopted in its initial wording. It contained provisions like political cooperation, common citizenship, immigration policies, visa policies, security issues ... It was due to a consistent position of Kazakhstan that the provisions like common citizenship, common foreign policies, inter-parliamentary cooperation, passport and visa procedures, common protection of borders and etc. were excluded," Ordabaev said.
In its current wording the draft Treaty takes into account all the national interests of Kazakhstan. "All these issues are regulated by multilateral documents, there is no more legal vacuum. The treaty will deal with economic issues only,” he said. "The decision was made, with our interests taken into consideration, that a supranational body will be regulating economic issues only, no polices," the Kazakhstan Vice-Minister explained.
Ordabayev said that Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus had gone a long way from CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) to EurAsEC (Eurasian Economic Community) before creating the Eurasian Economic Union. "The CIS was a twelve-member union, then came the Eurasian Economic Community that also played its part. At that point it became obvious that we had to narrow down the scope of our cooperation, and limit it to purely economic matters at that stage of cooperation," he said. Then the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus was created based on the EurAsEC. And in November 2011 it was decided to approach creation of the Eurasian Economic Union.
The signing of the Treaty establishing the Eurasian Economic Union is scheduled for May 29 in Astana.
Reporting by Asemgul Kasenova, writing by Dinara Urazova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina