RUSSIAN-PROPOSED FINANCIAL AGREEMENTS FALL THROUGH.

A joint session of the CIS Interstate Currency Committee and the Council of the Interstate Bank, held on October 16 in Moscow and chaired by Russian Central Bank president Sergei Dubinin, failed to adopt all three draft agreements on "deeper integration" presented by the Russian side. The first draft agreement envisaged establishing mutual convertibility of the national currencies of all CIS member countries for payments in intra-CIS trade and services — in practice a step toward a payments union. The second draft stipulated common principles of customs control, including the member states’ obligation to report all cross-border movements of goods and banking transactions to a central authority — in effect a supranational organ. The third Russian proposal would have increased the Interstate Bank’s statutory capital from 5 to 55 billion rubles. All member countries either rejected outright or asked for changes in the first two drafts; and only some of the countries — presumably the more impoverished ones — declared an interest in further discussions of the revised documents. The third proposed agreement has been relegated for possible reconsideration at an unspecified future time. (Interfax, October 16)

Lithuania Electing New Parliament.