“I may only say that a meeting, during which this problem may be put forward, is planned to be held this month, and we have already obtained a preliminary approval from the European Commission for that,” Zananavičius of Lithuania's mission to the UN and other international organizations in Geneva told the news portal eversus.lt.
“Some Lithuania’s officials have recently been urging to address the WTO and, of course, we are considering this possibility. We are collecting the materials and will hand them over to the European Commission, which represents the EU Member States at the WTO. The Commission is the only authority that could sue Russia in WTO court whereas we have to prove that it has to do that – to collect the required documents and proofs,” the diplomat said.
If it were decided to go to the WTO, the proceedings could last for up to two years, he said. Therefore, political measures would be taken in the first place so as to speed up the settlement of the dispute.
“Lithuania is cooperating with the European Commission and has already provided certain information about the haulers. Letters from two European Commissioners, Algirdas Šemeta and Karel De Gucht who is responsible for trade, were published later. It proves that the Commission has found our information about the emerging problems in trade with Russia convincing. On the other hand, the commissioners are trying to handle the situation through political measures in the first place. It’s the only way to solve the problem quickly,” Zananavičius said.
He reminded that Lithuania had negotiated that Russia would not apply customs procedures targeting a specific country upon accession to the WTO.
