Nazarbayev: The Eurasian Union has overcome its first uneasy year

Presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan, Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev have had a meeting in Moscow on Monday.

As the Kremlin press office reports, Putin said the strategic partnership of Russia and Kazakhstan has been developing steadily, despite known difficulties in the global economy that are affecting the countries’ growth.

“Nevertheless, we continue our work in making similar our regulations in customs, in technical regulation, in other fields too. All those things cannot but bear positive results. I am sure, if we had nothing on what we previously agreed and within frameworks of what we are working on today, our economies would have been hurt even more harshly,” the Russian president noted.

In his turn, Nazarbayev noted that the countries had their first year in the Eurasian Economic Union, which was an uneasy one, as they were facing economic crisis.

“We had known we would face such side effects. Nevertheless, I find it right that we did it and we need to move further. It is true that GDPs of all the countries slumped by 30%, the trade turnover shrunk, however, our communication, open borders, joint ventures are playing a significant role, and we shall discuss it at the High Council of the Eurasian Economic Union. We shall discuss all the situations we have now: Russia is involved in Syria, other countries, the Turkish issue, I think we shall discuss all those issues,” the Kazakh president said.

As for the bilateral relations, Nazarbayev noted that the intergovernmental commission is actively working and there are no vital bilateral issues: “Probably, we need to discuss at the High Council meeting how to develop the Eurasian [Economic] Union in the situation when Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Pacific [partnerships] are being founded. We also have questions to discuss.”