Reprisals in the name of Customs Union

The Belarusian authorities set impossible conditions for market vendors.

Belarusian consumer markets may close on December 1. The formal reason is impossible requirements of the Customs Union's technical regulations. Some experts think the country's authorities just use the integration institution to solve their local problems, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports.

The situation suddenly changed on the last day of October. Deputy PM and chairman of the council for the small business development Piotr Prakapovich said that the authorities would demand to show quality certificates for goods at markets starting December 1. Those who don't have certificates will face sanctions.

The public association Perspective that unites small businessmen held a forum to discuss the unexpected problem. The forum was organised on Monday and gathered about 400 representatives of this economy sector. A resolution was adopted. “We express our strong disagreement with the intention of the authorities to change the date of the entry into force of the technical regulations on safety of light industry products... We demand not to change the existing simplified procedures of confirming the quality of goods until July 1, 2014,” the resolution says. If the authorities and the business don't reach an agreement by December 1, market vendors will stop working, the document says.

The most interesting fact is the common rules in the Customs Union member states provoked tensions only in one country. Businessmen say it's because Russia has bigger problems and the authorities don't want to spend their forces and energy on persecuting poor market vendors.

Experts suggested another explanation yesterday. They say referring to a comment by the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) of the Customs Union, that the problem was created by the Belarusian authorities that “widened the scope of the the Customs Union's technical regulations on safety of light industry products on no grounds”. Antonina Golovtsova, a specialist from the EEC Technical Regulations Department and an advisor at the technical development department, specified in August that the certification procedures should be applied only to importers and manufacturers, the categories that don't include Belarusian market vendors who sell goods bought at Moscow's markets.