Russia considers it expedient to expand the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to include countries that send the largest number of labor migrants there, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper on Wednesday.

“The absence of differences in treatment of citizens of EAEU member states creates better conditions for integrating these people into our society, affects their quality of life, makes them more confident in their rights, less dependent on the diaspora, and significantly takes the ground away from under the feet of criminals associated with labor migration. This largely explains why we would like to expand the EAEU on the account of countries that send the largest number of labor migrants,” Overchuk noted.

He recalled that “the EAEU law enables to eliminate some of the tension associated with the movement of labor force between countries,” and also “enables citizens of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia, who work outside their countries, to enjoy the same rights as the citizens of the country where they live and work.”