Eurasian intergovernmental council to convene in Minsk on Friday

MOSCOW, July 17. /TASS/. Sessions of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council will be held in the Belarusian capital of Minsk on July 17, the Eurasian Economic Commission said. "A regular session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council will be held in Minsk on July 17. The agenda includes a wide range of Eurasian integration issues in the spheres of trade, internal market operations, competition, industry, technical regulations and other matters," the statement says. During the event, the sides will scrutinize the implementation of the agreement on the marking of goods and further development of this system within the Eurasian Economic Union. A comprehensive plan for health, sanitary and epidemiological measures to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) member states is also expected to be discussed. The participants will also discuss the draft project of an interstate program on EAEU members’ cooperation in the sphere of space and geo-information on the basis of remote sensing of the Earth. First offline meeting during pandemic Friday’s event will be the first offline meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic. It will also be Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s first foreign trip since the disease broke out in early 2020. "Minsk is prepared to welcome high-ranking guests, everything is ready for the participants’ fruitful work within the framework of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council," a spokesperson for the Belarusian government told TASS. The meeting will be held in the President Hotel Minsk. The event’s program includes meetings with restricted attendance and in the extended format. Moldovan foreign minister will attend the talks in Minsk as an observer. Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko said in the run-up to the event that the host country plans to raise "a package of very important issues of our union’s further functioning." "Only practical matters," he added. "The agenda is rich, it reflects the situation in the trade-and-economic relations." The Council’s previous meetings were held online on April 10 and 23 because of the coronavirus lockdowns. The last offline meeting was held in January 31 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Read more