The EU-Russia Industrialists' Round Table

The EU-Russia Industrialists' Roundtable (IRT) is a business platform composed of leaders of companies from the EU and Russia. The main body is the IRT Council, which gathers up to 20 business leaders around the same table for constructive discussions on EU-Russia economic relations.

The IRT was established in 1997 upon the suggestion of the political leaders meeting at an EU-Russia Summit. Since then, IRT provides a platform for business dialogue and has evolved into a full-fledged organisation that actively fosters discussions on bilateral economic relations.

Each year, the IRT invites business leaders, political decision makers and other stakeholders from the EU and Russia to an Annual Conference, where a wide range of topical business and industrial issues are debated.

IRT's main mission is to:

  • maintain a regular dialogue between the business communities and EU and Russian political leaders on relevant policy issues in EU-Russia economic relations
  • develop joint recommendations aimed at improving conditions for mutual trade and investment, business cooperation and partnership in order to support the creation of an EU-Russia common economic space
  • present the joint recommendations and other ad-hoc positions to policy makers, in particular the participants of the EU-Russia Summits
  • participate in relevant public policy debates on the basis of the joint recommendations
  • set up a structure of thriving Task Forces contributing to EU-Russia sectoral dialogues

The IRT's structure includes:

The IRT Council

The IRT Council is composed of prominent representatives of the EU and Russian business communities. The IRT Council meets regularly throughout the year to give strategic impetus to the IRT process in line with the IRT's mission and advocates IRT Joint Recommendations towards high-level political decision makers. The IRT Council is composed of:

IRT Task Forces

Under the IRT umbrella there are currently seven task forces focusing on different sectoral issues: Innovation, Building, Energy, Financial Services, Forest Industry, Transport and IT, Telecommunications and Space. The focus on the Task Forces is co-operation in the special industrial sector, not only at the level of industrial cooperation, business to business, but also to enhance the Governmental to Governmental dialogue

Task Force - Innovation
Co-chairmen:

Anatoly Chubais (Rusnano)

Task Force - Building
Co-chairmen:
Nikolay Koshman (Builders Association of Russia)
Wolfgang Hirzi (PORR Group)

Task Force - Energy
Co-chairmen:
Gertjan Lankhorst (GasTerra)
Viktor Vekselberg (Renova Group)

Task Force - Forest Industry
Co-chairmen:
Jouko Karvinen (Stora Enso)
Zakhar Smushkin (ILIM Group)

Task Force - Transport
Co-chairmen:
Dr Rüdiger Grube (Deutsche Bahn)
Vladimir Yakunin (Russian Railways)

Task Force - IT, Telecommunications and Space
Co-chair from the Russian Federation: Sergey Boev (AFK Sistema)

Task Force - Financial Services
Co-chairmen:
Guido Ravoet (European Banking Federation)
Garegin Tosunyan (Association of Russian Banks)

Task Force - Technical Regulations (TF8) -more info

Co-chairmen:
Hans-Jörg Grundmann (Siemens)
Dmitry Pumpiansky (TMK Group)

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The main objectives of the TF8 are:

  • to help to formulate common Russian-European market space;
  • to remove non-tariff barriers to trade between Russia and European Union in accordance to intention of Russia to access in WTO;
  • to harmonize Russian and European Technical regulation;
  •  to formulate Industry’s Requirements and Priorities in EU-RF harmonized Technical Regulation;
  • to elaborate proposals and recommendations about the following areas of possible better harmonization:
    • Agreement on uniform principles of technical regulation according to e.g. WTO-TBT, UN-ECE and others.
    • Mutual recognition of accreditation schemes according to e.g. IAF and EA.
    • Mutual recognition of conformity assessment and certification schemes.
    • Common understanding of minimum requirements for market surveillance.
    • Common understanding of preferable international voluntary standards e.g. those of ISO and IEC.

      NB: Agenda kick off workshop  10 – 13 Oct 2011

Contact
In case you would like to contact any of the abovementioned task forces, please mail to: IRT@kelleneurope.com