"This issue is not on the agenda. We have discussed it a number of times, but no decision has been made for many reasons”, said Glazyev at a briefing in Moscow.

He underscored that within the Customs Union ‘trinity’ – Russia, Kazakhstan and Belorussia – settlement is clearly dominated by the rouble. Aside from the dollar and the euro, currently used for energy carrier trades, the volume of rouble settlements between the three nations amounts to some 90%.

"We must allow our mutual trade progress to national currency completely, eliminate the dollar and the euro as intermediaries – and to do so we need direct national currency listings on MICEX, no cross-rates, a unified payment system in national currencies”, said the Aide.

Glazyev thinks that in the future, a separate interbank settlement system is possible "breaking our dependency on the foreign SWIFT system. Even after we have achieved that, switching to a single currency will not be necessary, since this role is de facto played by the rouble and it will remain so, at least for the three countries", he noted.

An added factor, said Glazyev, is Europe’s bad experience with the eurozone. "It is absolutely cleat that a single currency means a currency union, a single budget system and a unified sovereign debt system – and that did not happen in Europe. Europeans are only beginning to build this system today, when it is too late, and it is a painful process", said the Presidential Aide.

The Customs Union integration concept does not include a single financial system. There are also no plans for a single tax system or a unified budget.

The scope of economic integration is clearly set, said Glazyev: trade policy, customs regulation, technical regulation, sanitary, veterinarian and phyto-sanitary control, anti-monopoly policy, a common approach to migrant worker requirements, forming a single financial market.

"This plan will probably be augmented, we are now talking about unified passport and visa control, so that we can abolish not only customs checks but also border passport checks. This is a massive amount of work, it will take at least the next 5 years”, said Glazyev.

Project Group №4