28 May, Minsk / Yekaterina Nechayeva - BELTA /. The Customs Code of the Customs Union and its protocol have been submitted to the Administration of the President of Belarus. This was announced by Vadim Popov, Chairman of the Standing Commission of the Council of the Republic for Economy, Budget and Finance, today at a meeting of the fourth session of the upper house of parliament, a BELTA correspondent reports. The parliamentarian noted that recently the media has often heard criticism regarding "Belarus allegedly hindering the domestic procedures for the creation of the Customs Union". In this regard, he emphasized that 51 international treaties have been signed within the framework of the Customs Union. To date, 23 international documents have entered into force. Belarus has completed all domestic procedures for another 17 treaties, and the 11 latest Customs Union treaties are in the preparation stage. "As of today, 10 of them have been submitted to the House of Representatives, 2 have already been considered by the House of Representatives, and 8 will be considered on a package basis at the next meeting of the House of Representatives on June 4," said Vadim Popov. Thus, Belarus "is working in the set mode, including the National Assembly," the parliamentarian stated. He also noted that after the roundtable meeting of Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation sharply intensified its work on fulfilling the domestic procedures for the Customs Union agreements. In particular, 10 agreements, the Customs Code, and its protocol have already been adopted by the Federation Council, and some of them have been signed by the Russian President. Regarding the procedures for processing Customs Union agreements in Kazakhstan, Vadim Popov noted that this country "is significantly lagging behind, the position here is quite complex." "This may to some extent become an obstacle in further resolving these issues," the Belarusian senator summarized. -0-

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