Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Vladimir Putin's Eurasian Economic Union Gets Ready To Take On The W

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Vladimir Putin's Eurasian Economic Union Gets Ready To Take On The W

    VLADIMIR PUTIN'S EURASIAN ECONOMIC UNION GETS READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD

    Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus at heart of post-Soviet trading bloc
    that aspires to commerce but not community

    BenoƮt Vitkine Guardian Weekly, Tuesday 28 October 2014 10.04 GMT

    Leaders of former Soviet states gather for a regional summit in Minsk,
    Belarus. Photograph: Sasha Mordovets/Getty

    Until the last moment Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus,
    held out for 7 October, to coincide with Vladimir Putin's birthday.

    But in the end the parliament in Minsk ratified the treaty on Eurasian
    Economic Union on 9 October, the day before its first three members -
    Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan - were due to meet.

    It would be simplistic to reduce the nascent EEU to a toy in the hands
    of the Russian president. When it comes into force, on 1 January 2015,
    it will be the most advanced organisation for regional cooperation
    the former Soviet bloc has seen, an achievement preceded by many
    false starts.

    In fact, the EEU already exists. It has a headquarters - a glass
    building near Paveletsky railway station in Moscow - and officials
    who would not look out of place in Brussels. Its member states
    have already lifted some internal customs barriers and harmonised
    others for the outside world. So much for the practical side, what
    analyst Nicu Popescu describes in anarticle for the European Union
    Institute of Security Studies as the "real" EEU, a trading alliance
    slated to guarantee free circulation of goods, services and assets,
    but not hydrocarbons.

    The other Eurasian Union is "imaginary", the brainchild of Putin,
    first mentioned in October 2011. As he sees it, this organisation will
    be the equal of the EU and other major regional entities, a powerful
    bloc that will matter on the world stage. Its official formation
    is also intended to show the world that Russia has fully recovered,
    while crowning Putin's efforts to pull together the states making up
    the post-Soviet sphere of influence. Those who deride the scheme see
    it as an attempt to restore the empire.

    This dream foundered last November in Kiev, when the Maidan protests
    started. They carried away President Viktor Yanukovych, guilty in the
    eyes of the demonstrators of refusing an association agreement with the
    EU. Ukraine, with its population of 45 million, was supposed to play
    a key role in the EEU, on account of its economic clout and the place
    it occupies in the Russian imagination and worldview. "Without Ukraine,
    Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire," the former US national security
    adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in The Grand Chessboard, in 1997.

    Ukraine had to be punished, for wanting to move closer to Europe but
    also for refusing to join the EEU, after Yanukovych's demise. Moscow
    started by restricting trade with its neighbour, then annexed part
    of its territory (Crimea) and finally fomented war in its eastern
    extremity. Russia has also put pressure on Moldova and Georgia,
    both of which have so far shunned the EEU.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Kazakhstan's President
    Nursultan Nazarbayev. Both Belarus and Kazakhstan demanded subsidies in
    the form of gas or cash to join the EEU. Photograph: Dmitry Astakhov/AP

    Belarus and Kazakhstan have often voiced their concern at the treatment
    meted out to Ukraine. They have worked to limit the political weight
    of the Union too. Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev lobbied hard
    to get the word "economic" in the title and both states demanded a
    high price - gas or cash - for joining.

    Although Putin is determined to push the EEU perimeter as far as
    possible, it is not yet clear what real economic benefit countries
    will gain from membership. Apart from Belarus and Uzbekistan, all
    former Soviet states have stronger commercial links with either the
    EU or China than with Russia.

    Since the first customs measures were introduced in 2010, only Belarus
    has benefited. Enlargement to include poorer states such as Armenia,
    Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan would make the balance of the EEU even
    more precarious.

    But what counts for Putin is the image of Russia restored and the
    bolstered notion of a president embodying a conservative bulwark
    against western decadence. As Popescu puts it, the Russian president
    is prepared "to spend a few billion a year on a foreign policy project
    that, in his opinion, brings geopolitical benefits to his country,
    as well as domestic political benefits".

    So who else may join? Armenia, which has Russian troops on the ground
    and is counting on Moscow's support in its conflict with Azerbaijan
    over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, has announced plans to join shortly.

    The president of Kyrgyzstan, tipped to be next on the list, has
    displayed only lukewarm enthusiasm, a stance he made clear in December
    2013: "Ukraine has a choice, but unfortunately we don't have much of
    an alternative."

    Moscow's bear hug inspires fear and it has little in the way of soft
    power or other attractions to compensate. At an institutional level
    the EEU resembles the EU, but its workings are likely to be much more
    top-down, hinging on the power and domination of Moscow. "There is
    no concept of building a community in the EEU," says Thomas Gomart,
    an analyst at France's International Relations Institute, "but given
    trends in the EU, the Russians think their model is more viable."

    Introducing the EEU

    Members: Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus

    Prospective member: Armenia

    Possible members: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan

    Wooed: Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan

    Population: 173 million (Russia, including Crimea, 146 million;
    Kazakhstan, 17 million; Belarus, 10 million)

    Total GDP: $2.4 trillion

    Share of world gas reserves: 20%

    Share of world oil reserves: 15%

    This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material
    from Le Monde

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/eurasian-economic-union-russia-belarus-kazakhstan

Working...
X