Finland has gone to blackmail

The Russian part refused to make concessions and to ease up upon the exporting fees for the unprocessed timber. This conclusion threatens the Finnish woodworkers to have loss as well as the Russian part to enter to the WTO. The delegation of the Prime-Minister was not numerous. Mikhail Fradkov brought the deputy minister of foreign affairs Andrey Belyaninov, deputy chief of the Ministry of economical development Andrey Sharonov and his assistant Sergey Vinokurov along. The main topic of the negotiations was imposition of the prohibitive duties for round timber exporting. Though the Prime-Minister took only Andrey Deyneko from the Ministry of Industry and Energy with him who is Head of the Industrial Department. Before negotiations started Andrey Sharonov had assured journalists that they decided to postpone imposition of taxes on the most important for the Finnish industry kinds of wood (pine and birch) till 2011. In substitution Russia asks the Finnish part to invest its capital to the Russian woodworking. The deputy Minster pointed even the possible plants for investments of capital in Kostroma, Vologda, and St.-Petersburg. Though, summarizing up negotiations between the Prime-Minister of Finland Matti Vanhanen and Mikhail Fradkov it was clear that they failed to make a compromise. “We did not hold the same opinion, but we agreed to continue our negotiations,” – told the Russian Premier after the meeting. The parties will specify certain arrangements concerning the different kinds of trees and grace period of duties action. Such non-compliance threatens Russia problem with EC. Politicians and industrialists of Finland have threatened for a long time to block the entry to the WTO because of the forestry issue. The initiative belonged to the members of the Finnish Federation of the forestry. According to its President Anne Brunila, the augmentation of taxes contradicts the preliminary agreement by 2004 between Russia, EC, and WTO. The Finnish Premier Matti Vanhanen also reminded bout it on the press-conference summarizing up the negotiations. And Minister of foreign trading and development of Finland Paavo Vjaurunen has always promised to push Eurocommittee in order it to make Russia refusing the planning augmentations. Issue of tariffs on the railway freight was one more point by which Finland asked for intercession at EC and intended to block entry of Russia to the WTO. The representatives of the Finnish state railway company announced about the loss provoked by the high cost for the transboundary railway freight. As Andrey Sharonov explained to the information agency RBK daily, they had made a positive decision upon the issue of tariffs smoothing. Demurrages of the Finnish trucks on the Russian boarder were also in the center of attention. “A big amount of wagons on the Russian-Finnish boarder still continue to wait,” Andrey Belyaninov told. The official said that he would propose to Finnish the idea of introduction of specialization of pass offices according to the types of goods. The question of the Russian journalists about the liquidation of traffic jams on the customs control was dismissed by the Finnish Premier with a wave of his hand: “Measures are taken. This issue had been always discussed and we have discussed it now.”

(By materials of Bin.com.ua)