EU DEMANDS € 290 BILLION FOR RUSSIAN IMPORT SUBSTITUTION

The European Union complained about Russia to the World Trade Organization (WTO), considering the fact that Russia concludes state contracts with Russian, but not with European companies, to be infringement of its interests.  The calculated damage turned out to be € 290 billion.

The complaint concerns 2019, when the total cost of tenders published in Russia reached a multibillion-dollar figure, which, according to the WTO, is estimated at about a fifth of the country's GDP.

The demand of the European Union is the need to create a working group to assess the measures taken by Russia and to cancel or bring them in line with the WTO rules, the organization's website says.

The EU believes that the commitments undertaken by Russia under the WTO provide for non-discrimination in relation to national and foreign companies. However, over the past several years, the measures taken by Russia have led to a disadvantageous position for the European Union in the sale of goods and services to the Russian companies.

Earlier, the EU requested a consultation with Russia, which took place in September this year, but it did not solve the problem in question.

The position of Russia is that the United States and the European Union violate the WTO rules with the sanctions imposed against Russia. This was stated by the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova on the ‘Soloviev LIVE’ YouTube channel. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, also noted that Russia was not violating anything, reports TASS.