The European Union sent an appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) demanding to recover € 290 billion from Russia for financial damage caused by the import substitution policy. This amount came from the total cost of tenders by Russian state-owned enterprises in 2019. The EU complains that European companies did not participate in them.
“In 2019, the cost of published tenders for Russian state-owned enterprises amounted to 23.5 trillion rubles, or approximately € 290 billion, which is equivalent to about 20% of Russia’s GDP,” the WTO website says.
On December 22, the United States announced that by its import substitution policy, Russia was violating WTO rules. In particular, Washington expressed dissatisfaction with the restriction on imports of agricultural products. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called these accusations unfounded.
For more information about Russia’s activities in the organization, see the Kommersant article “Irreplaceable WTO”.
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