Russia, Belarus might resolve issue of mutual e-signature recognition by year's end
MOSCOW. Sept 22 (Interfax) - Russia and Belarus might resolve the issue of mutual recognition of enhanced, qualified electronic signatures (QES) by the end of this year, Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) Competition and Antimonopoly Regulation Minister Maxim Yermolovich said.
"The working group [on mutual recognition of QES] has been active since 2012, the rules are being agreed. We expect that we will be able to agree and adopt the rules for mutual recognition of QES between Russia and Belarus before the end of the year," Yermolovich said at the Moscow Finance Forum.
The adoption of such rules will make it possible to support legally significant e-document flow between customers and suppliers in both countries.
It was expected earlier that mutual recognition of QES by member countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) would be in place by the end of 2025.
In 2023, a temporary provision was added to Russia's law "On the Contract System" (44-FZ) under which suppliers from EAEU countries without an enhanced QES provided by an accredited certification center were allowed to exchange documents with Russian government customers without using the Unified Information System (UIS) in the area of procurements. This refers to the preparation, signing and submission of documents on acceptance, reasoned refusal to sign an acceptance document, agreements to change contract terms, agreements to terminate contracts and so on.
Russia's Finance Ministry said at the time that such a change was needed because legally significant e-document flow between customers and suppliers is carried out only in the UIS using enhanced QES. Foreign participants in procurements have the right to use e-signatures created in line with the provisions of the laws of the foreign country and still recognized in Russia, but there is no mutual recognition of enhanced QES at the moment.
Yermolovich also said work is continuing on the agreement of changes to the treaty on the EAEU aimed at increasing the number of competitive procurement procedures, including by classifying off-the-shelf and online store purchases as such procedures (this form of government purchasing was introduced as part of the contract system in April 2021).
The Russian Finance Ministry proposed back in 2024 at the level of the EEC to classify off-the-shelf purchases as competitive.
The EAEU protocol currently stipulates that union countries restrict the use of sole-supplier types of purchases in government procurements. Off-the-shelf purchases are technically deemed purchases from a sole supplier, although they are actually, the Finance Ministry believes, one of the most competitive means of procurement.
