On September 19, a seminar of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia was held in Gelendzhik on the topic "Model lawmaking in the Union State." The meeting participants highlighted the priority areas of joint lawmaking, including the digital economy.
During the seminar, deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly made reports and presentations, and representatives of the Union State Standing Committee, state bodies and leading scientific institutions of Russia and Belarus took part in the discussion.
Experts and deputies agreed that such areas as a unified educational space, digital economy, unmanned vehicles, issues of creating and using artificial intelligence can become priority directions for putting into practice the model legislation of the Union State.
Vitaly Shilov, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly Commission on Legislation and Regulations, Deputy Chairman of the Standing Commission on Labor and Social Affairs of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, noted that in the digital economy, Russia and Belarus are not moving in parallel, but in different directions.
He said :
“Now we are at such a level of interaction between our countries in terms of harmonization and unification of legislation that it has come to understand that we should move towards model legislation. That is, to establish a single legal framework that will allow us to adopt those bills within the Union State that will equally act both in Russia and in Belarus.
And one of the priority areas discussed at the seminar is the digital economy. Our legislation today is developing independently, and since the digital sphere is developing by leaps and bounds, in the future this may lead to problems in the relations between our states. This is due to the launch of cryptocurrencies, and with artificial intelligence. This includes digital payments and electronic bidding. These are the common ground on which real problems may arise in the near future.
In the framework of the seminar, with the participation of experts, we tried to find those points that need to be taken into account and determine the direction where to move in order to avoid or level all the negative consequences. Speaking on the example of the legislation of the two countries regarding the development of the digital economy, now we are not even going in parallel courses, but in different directions. And today we are saying that we need one law that will allow our digital economies to work in a single legal field. Such a system should work in other sectors of the economy. In the future, this will make it possible to exclude the appearance of legislative acts, to which then it is necessary to adopt a large number of amendments and make amendments. This is the essence of model laws (recommendation laws designed to promote the unification of national laws). ”
If the legal status of cryptocurrencies is still regulated in the Russian Federation (although, theoretically, the State Duma can approve the corresponding bill in the coming weeks), then in Belarus a decree “On the development of the digital economy” came into force in 2018.
The decree created the legal conditions for conducting ICOs, the use of cryptocurrency and the introduction of smart contracts. In fact, Belarus has become the first jurisdiction in the world with comprehensive legal regulation of blockchain- based business.
As a result of the event, a number of recommendations were adopted, which should be put into practice in the near future.
Publication date 09.24.2019
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