One of the four directions of the process of negotiations on accession of Russia to the World Trade Organization is negotiations on the so called system issues, i.e. the issues of compliance of the Russian legislation with the norms and rules of the whole package of WTO agreements.

Negotiations on the system issues are conducted not at the bilateral level, but rather in the Working Party on Accession of Russia to the WTO). The result of negotiations is a text of the Working Party Report. The text contains the following information:

• Description of the trade regime of the acceding country and its legislation;
• Obligations that the candidate is to undertake after the accession.

(The obligations can, for instance, stipulate that before national legislation in the sphere of subsidies is ratified, the new WTO member will be guided by the Agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures directly, or that within five years after accession the new member will decrease the amount of goods that government participates in setting prices on).

On the whole requirements of WTO member countries may be divided into three parts:

1. Russian legislation and enforcement practice being in conflict with WTO norms. WTO members' main concern is related to some norms of the present legislation in customs area, excessive demands to imported goods in the area of certification and conformity confirmation, procedures in the area of sanitary, veterinary and phytosanitary control, etc. In accordance with the conditions of Article XVI of the Agreement on establishing of the World Trade Organization (WTO), WTO member " should provide that its laws, rules and administrative procedures were in conformity with commitments to be taken within the WTO agreement".
   
   Participants of the negotiations require categorically fulfillment of all WTO provisions in this sphere. This is a standard requirement to all acceding countries.
   
   A plan of carrying out a legislative work in the sphere is available here
   
   
2. Application of certain regulation elements by Russia, which are in principle allowed in WTO, may be stipulated by certain requirements or commitments which are set forth in the Working Party report. These requirements are "subject to negotiations".



3. Requirements which are clearly beyond the WTO obligations (the so-called "WTO+" requirements), such as special conditions of notifications on the trade regime, on the course of privatization or a requirement on joining the agreements on government procurement or civil aircrafts, which are not obligatory in WTO, unification of domestic and external prices for energy resources.

In the course of negotiations trade partners of Russia, for instance, European Union and China, impose requirements that do not fall into the category of standard ones (the so called “WTO+”), for instance, regarding lifting restrictions on foreign labour force inflows (China) or bringing domestic energy prices to the world level (European Union and other members of the Working Party). Russian position at the negotiations is such that accession to the organization will take place only on standard conditions. The conditions that other countries have acceded the WTO on, can not be considered as a “pattern” for shaping the position of Russia in the course of negotiations on accession to the World Trade Organization.