Eurasian integration was advancing on its own merits and many Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries showed interest in it, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.
“Today, we are discussing a road map for Armenia’s accession. And the similar document for Kyrgyzstan has been at the coordination stage,” Putin told a session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council.
Putin has pushed forward integration projects, such as the Customs Union (CU) and the Eurasian Common Economic Space (CES) with a view to establishing a Eurasian Economic Union in 2015.
He said barriers to the CU and CES projects must be listed and the timing must be set to remove them by March 2014.
That would enable the businesses of the member countries to work under single anti-trust rules, the president said, adding there was a need to maintain the balance of interests between CU members and candidates that sought to join the association.
The CU, which was formed in 2010, includes Belarus and Kazakhstan, with Armenia high on the waiting list.
The CES, created by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 2012, aims to further promote free movement of goods, capital and workforce within the bloc.
The session was also attended also by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev, Xinhua informs.
