"A purposeful vision"

In an interview with German television news network n-tv, Roland Berger described Russian Prime Minister Putin's proposal to set up a joint free trade zone as a "clear, sensible and purposeful vision".

Despite the volatile Russian market and lack of reliability of the Russian government, Roland Berger approves of investing in the growing Russian market. Comparable to the progress made by the 14 countries that have joined the EU since 2004, Russia is also striving for economic integration. The requirements for this are slowly but surely materializing. A joint free trade zone would serve to accelerate these transformation processes.

However, Berger does not believe that Russia should join the euro zone, as the country does not currently meet any convergence criteria.

"At any rate, it's better to have this kind of long-term vision than to create more conflict," Berger summarized.