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The Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) is open for cooperation with other international structures, including the European Union, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said Tuesday after a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, TASS reported.

“Our economic union is also open for mutually beneficial cooperation with all integration associations of the world, including the European Union,” Nazarbayev told journalists.

At the same time, he said, EEU members should make it an attractive model of economic partnership for other states so that the number of participants of that integration association could be expanded. In this connection, he also noted that the adopted interstate documents on establishment of the EEU “take into account the national interests and economic capabilities of each of our countries.”

Nazarbayev also said the year 2015 will go down in history as the start of a new stage of Eurasian integration.

“For the first time in the history of vast Eurasian expanses, an economic association is established on a voluntary, equal and mutually beneficial basis, with a powerful natural and resource potential, transport, power and technology systems strategically important on the global and regional scale,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday after the summit of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council that the EEU is open for other countries.

“The EEU is open for work with all our neighbors, in the framework of the CIS, open for our partners in the east and west,” Putin said, adding that the treaty on Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the EEU was signed at the meeting.

The Russian president said the participation of Armenia that signed such a treaty earlier and Kyrgyzstan in the EEU will contribute to the countries’ development.

“The growth of the number of participants is for the good of the Union itself as well: it increases the size of its market, contributes to the strengthening of trade and economic ties, the launch of new investment projects,” he said.

The new integration association - the Eurasian Economic Union - will start operating on January 1, 2015. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia make part of the EEU.