Twenty-Five Years since the USSR Collapse: The Eurasian Economic Union has a Promising Future
The EAEU members adopt common microeconomic policies encompassing industry, agriculture, transport, energy, foreign trade investments, customs, technical regulation, competition and antitrust regulation. The plans include a single currency and greater integration [...]
On December 8, 1991 Russia, Belarus and Ukraine stated that the USSR ceased to exist and signed an agreement on the creation of the CIS. Mikhail Gorbachev, the President of the Soviet Union, resigned on December 25, 1991. The Russian Federation assumed the USSR’s rights and obligations to become the recognized primary legal successor of the Soviet Union.
Each post-Soviet state was free to choose its own destiny but the need to cooperate and maintain mutually beneficial close economic ties was evident.
The creation of the Eurasian Customs Union was guaranteed by 3 different treaties signed in 1995, 1999 and 2007. The first treaty in 1995 guaranteeing its creation, the second in 1999 guaranteeing its formation, and the third in 2007 announced the establishment of a common customs territory and the formation of the customs union. Unlike the previous attempts to integrate, this initiative happened to be an evident success resulting in such practical steps as the introduction of common customs tariff, the adoption of the Customs Code in 2010, and the elimination of border controls in 2011.
January 2015 witnessed an important step towards further integration in Eurasia. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) came into operation comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. An organization with an integrated single market of 183 million people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of over $4 trillion (PPP) emerged on the world map to introduce the free movement of goods, capital, services and people. The development is a part of global trend. NAFTA, the EU, the Latin American Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), the ASEAN Economic Community in Asia Pacific and the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) are the examples of integration projects bringing countries together and making them benefit from free trade areas (FTA).
The EAEU members adopt common microeconomic policies encompassing industry, agriculture, transport, energy, foreign trade investments, customs, technical regulation, competition and antitrust regulation. The plans include a single currency and greater integration. Structural homogeneity setting common technological targets is one the driving forces of the integration process. Soviet inheritance of the common electric power infrastructure, including nuclear energy sector, transport and communication networks, research and development systems fosters mutually beneficial technological cooperation.
The benefits include free trade and free movement of goods, capital, services and workforce. The interdependence of EAEU stakeholders lowers the probability of conflicts. The Eurasian project also protects its members from the side effects of globalization processes and helps to get profits from world trade. Nobody loses and everyone wins without any detriment to the interests of others.
The image of the EAEU in the West is controversial. Often the reason is low awareness of the project. Many view the EAEU as the revival of the old Soviet Union or an imperialist project. But the Union is based on the principles of equality among all members and lays out other postulates about integration, which are focused on economic interests and have nothing to do with ideology or politics.
The allegations that Moscow dominates the project are unfounded. Not a single EAEU document says anything about the dominance of Russia. After all, it was Kazakhstan that offered the idea of Eurasian integration in the 1990s. The organization boasts the system of subnational bodies set up to counterbalance national ambitions and prevent infringement on interests of individual members. The Russia’s goal is a stable and predictable environment along its borders. Addressing economic problems together is the best way to avoid instability.
True, the EAEU is opposed to Western hegemony and seeks an equal, rather than a dominant, place in the world community. However, the Union lacks any grounding in a political theory to legitimate its superiority and, outside the area of Eurasia; it is not expansionary in vision.
The Union’s members draw lessons looking at the EU going through hard times. They realize that in order to avoid the mistakes committed by the European Union with its bloated bureaucratic structure, the EAEU needs a balanced and flexible mechanism of decision-making.
Today the future of The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is uncertain while the EAEU is making strides to achieve further progress.
The integration within the framework of the EAEU bolsters global multipolarity. As Russian President Vladimir Putin put it, «…integrating with our neighbors is our absolute priority. The future Eurasian Economic Union, which we have declared and which we have discussed extensively as of late, is not just a collection of mutually beneficial agreements. The Eurasian Union is a project for maintaining the identity of nations in the historical Eurasian space in a new century and in a new world. Eurasian integration is a chance for the entire post-Soviet space to become an independent centre for global development, rather than remaining on the outskirts of Europe and Asia».
The EAEU can become a bridge to the Greater Europe – a common cooperative space together with the EU as part of the process leading to a broader continental integration «From Lisbon to Vladivostok» to benefit the West as well.
It is very important that the Eurasian integration targets not Europe only but also Asia. In late July, the EAEU ratified its first-ever free trade agreement with a country outside of the Union – Vietnam. Recently the EAEU has received around 40 proposals for free trade agreements (FTA). Many of them come from Asia-Pacific countries.
This year the Union has signed memoranda of cooperation with Cambodia and Singapore. During the Russian President’s visit to China in June, the EAEU signed a joint declaration on transition to the negotiation stage for development of the Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation between the Eurasian Economic Union (the EAEU) and the People’s Republic of China. Once signed, a cooperation deal with China will be a great leap forward.
Russia is interested in drawing all Asia Pacific countries, not only China, into projects to develop Siberia and the Russia’s Far East. For those unwilling to make a definitive choice between the US and China, Russia and the EAEU would become a truly independent center of power. In 2016, the process of rebalancing Russia’s Asian policy got underway with a sequence of milestone summits: the Russia-Japan Summit on May 6 (and another one slated for December 15) and the ASEAN-Russia Summit on May 19-20.
The idea of ASEAN and EAEU forming a free trade area was broached for the first time at the summit, while the talks about setting up free trade zones between the EAEU and specific ASEAN countries, such as Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia, and are already underway. The ASEAN-Russia Summit declaration mentions the need to explore ways for Russia to join the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).The idea to bring together the EAEU, ASEAN, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Silk Road Economic Belt is very promising.
Russia’s plans to expand the Eurasian integration to encompass China, India, Iran, ASEAN and the RCEP will lead to the creation of a major Euro-Asian political and economic arc to become the backbone of new world order at the time the US-led projects appear to have a slim chance to ever materialize while Brexit and multiple internal crises within the EU prove the European integration pattern has too many flaws.
The EAEU does not follow others. It seeks for its own recipes to become effective, unique and profitable for all members. As such, the project is a promising development to benefit all parties involved.
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
Ema Miljkovic-Bojanic, M. A.Institute of History ofSerbian Academy of Sciences and ArtsBelgrade, 2000Malcolm’s Apology of the “Pax Ottomana” (Ab)using of historiography and historical facts for political ends is not a novelty introduced towards the end of the twentieth century. Its instances have been known throughout history, so that “practically there is not a single epoch of human history that was not controlled – by the Church, state, nation, party, leadership…” But precisely at a time when historiography seemed to be getting rid, at least partly, of the grip of “supervision” and when a critical approach was getting the upper hand, the ...
The UK Parliament just confirmed what the alternative media has been saying for years.Specifically, a new report from the bipartisan House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee – based on interviews with all of the key British decision-makers, review of documents, and on-the-ground investigations in Africa – found that the Libyan war was based on lies, that it destroyed the country, and that it spread terrorism far and wide.The War Based On Bogus Intelligence … Like the Iraq WarInitially, the report finds that the threat to civilians from Libyan government forces was dramatically overstated:Former French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé, who introduced ...
Russian literature fans will recall a moving spectacle from Dostoevsky’s novel “The House of the Dead”. As political prisoners are marched off under guard to Siberia, village folk are handing them food and other provisions that they will need on their long journey. The poor villagers are probably scraping the bottom of their own barrel in order to show Christian Orthodox compassion to those unfortunates. The allegedly nasty czarist guards do nothing to thwart these poignant expressions of humanity. Chances are (and Dostoevsky strongly suggests it) that they themselves feel considerable sympathy for their pitiful charges. Now, fast forward.Albeit depicted ...
The Chinese have a genius for pithy expressions and few are more packed with meaning, while immediately understandable, than "paper tiger". NATO is one, but paper tigers that overestimate their powers can be dangerous.Some Russians are concerned that there are today more hostile troops at the Russian border than at any time since 1941. While this is true, it is not, at the moment, very significant. The Germans invaded the USSR with nearly 150 divisions in 1941. Which, as it turned out, were not enough.Today NATO has – or claims to have – a battle group in each of the three ...
The Balkan Peninsula together with the region of South-East Europe historically has been one of the most important focal points of the Russian foreign policy, cultural influences and attempts to spread an ideology of the Orthodox solidarity and the Slavic reciprocity.[1] These ideas are common to almost all trends of the Russian public life in the past and today.After Russia lost the Great Crimean War of 1853–1856 she intensified its cultural influence in the region of the South-East Europe for the purposes of beating the Habsburg (the Roman-Catholic) rivalry and to spread an idea of the Pan-Slavism in this part ...
The June 20 Gray Falcon commentary “Failure to Communicate” has this excerpt, that led me to an extremely anti-Russian and anti-Serb article, from a venue which has previously slanted in that direction:“The latest example of this ‘flipping the script’ is a New Republic feature comparing Putin to Milosevic. In reality, it is the West acting towards Russia the same way they acted towards the Serbs two decades ago. I’ve argued before that Putin is aware of this, though the Russian public and media in general may not be.”Whether the issue is the Caucasus or Ukraine, bombing Russia hasn’t been considered, unlike ...
The U.S. public loves fascists; they elect them, constantly. Donald Trump, who “says he would raise the minimum wage and stop the endless efforts at regime change,” is called a fascist by some. But Hillary Clinton “is happy to bomb Libya or Syria or any other country,” and played a major role in mass Black incarceration. Barack Obama is the war-maker and deporter-in-chief. “All of the major party candidates fit the F word description in some way.”“No one comes into office with any intention of undoing America’s leadership as the world’s worst jailer.”Donald Trump is the ill spoken, boorish, graceless ...
Exclusive photos of the Russian war crimes in Syria and the Middle East by "Free Media Group" volunteers, 2016-2018 with a proper illustrations of the Russia's militant imperialism. The authenticity of photos and their descriptions are certified by the UK Cabinet of Boris Johnson & Theresa May: The My Lai Massacre by Russian soldiersThe Russian soldiers at the spot of My Lai Massacre with their victimsAleppo citizen with a daughter during the Russian destruction of the cityRussian Orthodox monk in Moscow in protest against the Russian invasion of SyriaSyrian children of war and the Russian occupant soldier Killed Russian student in ...
Clinton/NATO Intervention In Balkans Revealed As Half-Witted DhimmitudeFebruary 26, 2007- San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Twelve years after the alleged Srebrenica massacre, the International Court of Justice [ICJ] has found that charges alleging that a systematic policy of ethnic cleansing by the Bosnian Serb government was used against the Bosnian Muslims are baseless, yet the court adamantly maintains a belief in the myth of Srebrenica, much in the way that Islamists worldwide hold on to the Jenin hoax because both serve to stoke anti-Western, anti-Israel sentiment.From the beginning it should have been clear that the Clinton administration's decision to ...
Recently, the West and the Middle East pundits and analysts have been trying to analyze the provisions of the new draft constitution proposed by the Russian side as a solution to the Syrian conflict.Naturally, analyzing the provisions, any of the sides involved in the conflict is trying to present itself as the legitimate government. That raises the question of whether to adopt such a draft or not, because a newly appointed government would have to comply with a new constitution. Not surprisingly, not only the moderate opposition and illegal armed groups, but the official Syrian authorities as well subject the ...
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.[wpedon id="4696" align="left"]SaveSave
To gauge the transformation in the response by the U.S. military, the mainstream media and the public to a U.S. war crime, one need only compare the reactions to two of the most heinous American crimes: the 1968 My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the gunning down of innocent Iraqis on a Baghdad street in 2007.The latter was captured on a cockpit video from attacking Apache helicopters and revealed in a video released by WikiLeaks ten years ago today. Wikileaks obtained the video from a conscientious U.S. Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning. The My Lai incident was revealed to the public ...
A complex geopolitical situation in the region forces the Baltic States and their NATO allies to take unprecedented efforts to increase defence capabilities to counter potential aggressors. A new Lithuanian military strategy approved in March describes Russia actions along with terrorism as the main threats for the security of Lithuania, as reported by Delfi.Unfortunately for pacifists, the Alliance and Russia today are arming and demonstrating their military power. They constantly compare their armed forces’ strength and capabilities, conduct large-scale military exercises, respond to each other by deploying new contingents and military equipment closer and closer to the NATO-Russian border.The Baltic ...
Jomo Kenyatta (c. 1891 – 22 August 1978) was a Kenyan politician and the first President of Kenya. Kenyatta was the leader of Kenya from independence in 1963 to his death in 1978, serving first as Prime Minister (1963–64) and then as President (1964–78). He is considered the founding father of the Kenyan nation. Kenyatta was a well-educated intellectual who authored several books, and is remembered as a Pan-Africanist. He is also the father of Kenya's fourth and current President, Uhuru Kenyatta (Source: Wikipedia)Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate ...
In March [1999], the most powerful military force in history attacked tiny Yugoslavia (one fifth the size of Saskatchewan), and after seventy-nine days of flagrantly illegal bombing forced an occupation of Kosovo. Admitting its intention was to break Yugoslavia’s spirit, NATO targeted civilian structures, dropping over 23,000 bombs (500 Canadian) and cruise missiles in a campaign of terror bombing, described recently by Alexander Solzhenitsyn as follows:“I don’t see any difference in the behaviour of NATO and of Hitler. NATO wants to erect its own order in the world and it needs Yugoslavia simply as an example: We’ll punish Yugoslavia and ...
The U.N. Organization was established in 1945 for the very security reason – to preserve the peace in the world. We believe that the governmental bodies and administrative structures of the U.N. have to be composed by the proved democratically oriented politicians and magistrates but above all this requirement has to be applied to the post and function of the U.N. Secretary-General. Nevertheless, in the history of the U.N. there is at least one (extremely) problematic appointment to the post of the U.N. Secretary-General: Kurt Waldheim from Austria.On the official website of the U.N. about its fourth Secretary-General one can ...
The recent declassification of over 3800 documents by the Central Intelligence Agency provides detailed proof that since 1953 the CIA operated two major programs intent on not only destabilizing Ukraine but Nazifying it with followers of the World War II Ukrainian Nazi leader Stepan Bandera.The CIA programs spanned some four decades. Starting as a paramilitary operation that provided funding and equipment for such anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance groups as the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council (UHVR); its affiliates, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), all Nazi Banderists. The CIA also provided support to a relatively anti-Bandera faction ...
PrefaceCommon historical feature of the “Three Baltic sister-states” (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) is that for most of the modern time instead of the state independence there were the decades of the foreign administrations imposed by several European powers. Such historical experience exposed the people living in this part of the Baltic region to several foreign political regimes, different cultural and linguistic influences. A short period of independence between the two world wars was followed again by the losing of formal political independence. It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s by the decision of ...
Despite the popular belief that because of D-Day, the US and the western allies won WW2 in Europe, the truth is that WW2 had already been won in Europe by Soviet Russia when it defeated the German army in the eastern front. By 1944, Nazi Germany had already lost the war to the Soviet Union, which had basically annihilated the Wehrmacht in the eastern front and the Red Army was racing its way towards Berlin, with the German army unable to hold it off, and barely able to offer up any meaningful resistance.Just to put things into perspective, while ...
General Adolf Heusinger (August 4, 1897 – November 30, 1982) was a German general officer who briefly served as Adolf Hitler’s Chief of the General Staff of the Army during World War II and served as the first Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, the West German armed forces, from 1957 to 1961. Heusinger served as Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 1961 to 1964.Heusinger was born in Holzminden, in the Duchy of Brunswick, German Empire. He entered the Imperial German Army on June 17, 1915, and was assigned to 7. Thüringisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 96, an infantry regiment raised in ...
It is very important that the Eurasian integration targets not Europe only but also Asia. In late July, the EAEU ratified its first-ever free trade agreement with a country outside of the Union – Vietnam. Recently the EAEU has received around 40 proposals for free trade agreements (FTA). Many of them come from Asia-Pacific countries.
