foir_3880

FOI-R--3880--SE
PRIMARILY ECONOMIC INTEGRATION, NOT POLITICAL
The political appetite for further integration is more apparent in Russia, Belarus
and Kazakhstan, in Kyrgyzstan (whose accession to the CU was announced in
2011), and in Tajikistan (which will join the CU only after Kyrgyzstan since it
lacks common borders with other CU members). Participating in further
integration is also on the political agenda in Armenia and possibly even in
Ukraine.
Each country sees economic incentives to participate in the EEU. Belarus
enjoyed some 10 billion USD energy subsidies from Russia in 2012, equalling
some 16 per cent of Belarus’ gross domestic product (GDP). Furthermore,
between summer 2011 and spring 2013, the Ministry of Finance of Belarus
received five of the six tranches of the Eurasian Economic Union Anti-Crisis
Fund, totalling some 3 billion USD. Russia supplied the lion’s share of the fund’s
resources (Timarov, 2013).
The programme to create the EEU is ambitious not only in the economic but also
in the political and security spheres. Meanwhile some of the planned measures
may meet difficulties and others may not be implemented at all. It may seem
paradoxical, but the integration processes may not limit but rather strengthen the
power of the member states’ leaders. Integration will be welcome as long as it
improves the positions of national elites. Measures transferring national political
power to a supranational body are, however, likely to meet ulterior though still
fierce resistance. Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev for example
made this clear when discussing the prospects of the EEU in the Kremlin on
24 December 2013. In his view, the protection of the state borders, migration,
defence and security systems, health, education, science, culture, and legal
assistance in civil, criminal and administrative cases ‘are not relevant to
economic integration and cannot be transferred to the format of an economic
union’ (Netreba and Butrin, 2013).
Some of the goals are therefore unlikely to be achieved (at least in the
foreseeable future). One example is coordination of foreign policy. Whilst
demonstrating compliance and unified will on many issues, each member
country is likely to retain the right to act independently in foreign policy.
Another example is a single currency. Member states would not risk losing the
right to print their own national currency. Finally, despite the creation of some
integrated units within the CSTO, the plans for unified armed forces appear
unrealistic.
But is the Eurasian Union a Great Russian neo-imperial project to re-establish
Russia’s hegemony and revive the USSR Not really. Since the states of the
former Soviet Union have reached such a level of independence and built such
extensive relations with various world powers they will not allow Russia to
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