Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed to approve the EAEC Development Strategy until 2025 without a paragraph on unified gas tariffs. He said this during the EAEC summit, which was held on May 19 as a video conference, RIA NOVOSTI reports.
At the beginning of the session Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated that the issue of pricing for gas transportation services in the common market of the EAEC remained unsettled. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that the document on the strategic directions of economic integration should fix the principle of applying common approaches to pricing and tariff formation in the common gas market of the EAEC, BelTA informs.
Vladimir Putin, in turn, stressed that the use of a single formula of gas tariffs in the EAEC requires a level of integration, which has not yet been reached.
“As for the proposed single tariff for gas transportation and transit services by our Armenian and Belarusian friends, we believe that the single tariff can be implemented only in a single market with a single budget, a single tax system. Such a deep level of integration into the EurAsEC has not yet been reached,” said the President of Russia.
Putin showed that “for now gas prices should be formed on the basis of market conditions”.
“It is important to take into account the costs and investments of suppliers, as well as to ensure a reasonable rate of return on capital invested in production. This is common — I would like to stress that, dear colleagues — this is common world practice,” he summed up.
Therefore, Putin proposed to approve the EAEC Development Strategy until 2025 without a single gas tariff clause.
“If the positions of our Armenian and Belarusian friends remain unchanged, it would certainly be logical to exclude the gas point from the draft strategy in order to approve it today,” the Russian leader stressed.
