RUSSIA, July 4 - Issues related to the further development of integration in the key economic sectors and improvement of the union’s legal base were discussed.

A meeting of the Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission took place chaired by Russian Deputy Minister Alexei Overchuk.

The participants discussed issues related to the further development of integration in the key economic sectors and improvement of the union’s legal base.

In particular, amendments to the Rules for Conducting Pharmaceutical Inspections were agreed upon, providing for the establishment of uniform approaches to conducting pharmaceutical inspections using remote communication tools.

It was decided to amend the Rules for Good Manufacturing Practices in the Eurasian Economic Union. These amendments unify the definitions regarding circulation of medicines and clarify the composition of the registration dossier, as well as introduce a number of clarifications into the requirements for qualification and validation in order to ensure the recognition of reports issued by pharmaceutical manufacturers of the Union member states and pharmaceutical inspectorates of third countries.

Amendments have been made to the Rules for Conducting Research on Biomedical Products of the Eurasian Economic Union. The decision adds new chapters on medicines derived from blood plasma, biotechnological medicines based on therapeutic proteins and vaccines for the prevention of influenza and smallpox, and also updates the requirements for the development and study of low molecular weight heparins.

The Rules for Defining the Country of Origin of Certain Types of Goods for the Purposes of State (municipal) Procurement are supplemented by separate commodity items in the machine tool industry, power engineering, furniture and woodworking industries, and will allow for designating the origin of such products as “Eurasian.”

Significant progress has been made in forming a common electric power market of the union. A resolution of the Commission Council was adopted, which defines Administrator of the Trading System of the Wholesale Electricity Market as an organisation that ensures centralised trading of electricity a day ahead in the common electricity market of the Eurasian Economic Union, and provides for a request to the Russian Federation to provide ATS Enegro with a set of necessary technological measures to start executing functions and powers as the operator.

The Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission decided to establish requirements for navigational seals used in the transportation of goods via the territories of two or more Union member states. The decision determines the parameters of the technical elements the navigation seal is composed of, its main functions, basic physical and technical characteristics, design and other features of the navigation seal.

The regulation of procurement for state corporations in the Eurasian Economic Union was discussed, which determines approaches to the selection of promising cooperation projects that can receive support from the Union’s budget, as well as to the promotion of interaction between the EAEU and the CIS, SCO, BRICS, ASEAN and other integration associations. Steps were outlined for further work on these topics of integration cooperation.