Customs Union, CES to become basis for Eurasian Union - Putin.

MOSCOW, October 4 (Itar-Tass) - The Customs Union and the Common
Economic Space, created by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will become the
basis for setting up the Eurasian Union, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin wrote in an article published by the Izvestia daily on Tuesday.
"The construction of the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space
creates a foundation for setting up in the future a Eurasian economic
union. At the same time, the circle of participants in the Customs Union
and the CES will be gradually expanding through a full involvement in
their work of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan," the prime minister said.
"We don't stop at this and we set ourselves an ambitious task of
getting to a next, higher level of integration - the Eurasian Union,"
Putin stated. According to him, this does not mean a reconstruction of the
former USSR in this or that shape.
"It is nave to try to restore or copy what is already in the past,
but close integration on a new political and economic basis is the call of
the times," Prime Minister Putin noted.
"We are offering the model of a powerful supra-national union, capable
to become one of the poles of the modern world and at that - play the role
of an efficient link between Europe and the dynamic Asian Pacific region.
This also means that on the basis of the Customs Union and the CES it is
necessary to proceed to closer coordination of the economic and currency
policy, create a full-value economic union," he explained.
Putin is confident that "the addition of natural resources, capitals,
a strong human potential will let the Eurasian Union be competitive in an
industrial and technological race, in a competition for investors, for the
creation of new jobs and advanced productions, and ensure stability of
global development along with other key players and regional agencies,
such as the European Union, the USA, China, APEC".