Today Prime Minister Putin has embarked upon a two-day formal trip to Brussels to meet with the European Commission, where it is anticipated bilateral relations, energy cooperation and one looming, tired issue, that of joining the WTO, will all be fodder for discussion.  The Wall Street Journal points out this last matter which has been negotiated for almost two decades, remains problematic for a gamut of reasons:

The business community is still skeptical,” says Anka Schild, an analyst with Business Europe, the Brussels-based alliance of industry lobbies.

The issue is of big importance to global trade because Russia is the only major economy in the world not bound by the WTO’s limits on import tariffs and its legal system for adjudicating trade disputes.