What is the EaEU today?

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Kazakhstan hosted sessions of the Council of the Heads of CIS Governments and the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council on May 28-29, attended by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Over 20 agreements were signed within the framework of the working group working on a whole set of activities, particularly transit, an agreement in the defense sector, an agreement in the trade-economic sector, in the humanitarian and the ecological sectors.

Alexander Gusev, head of the Center for Strategic Development of CIS Countries, RAS Institute of Europe, director of the Institute of Strategic Planning and Forecasting, thinks that one of the main outcomes of the forum is that Kyrgyzstan signed the agreement on joining the Eurasian Economic Union.

“An important element of the session was that Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus signed an agreement with the Republic of Vietnam, which is principally important in terms of diversification, first of all, of commercial and economic relations,” Gusev noted, stressing that the EaEU has taken the path of expansion of cooperation with countries beyond the post-Soviet space. According to the expert, signing the agreement with Vietnam will increase the trade turnover with Vietnam from $4 billion to $10-12 billion in two years, due to gradual annulling of customs for Vietnam and countries included in the EaEU.

Alexander Gusev thinks the EaEU has reached serious achievements in the trade and economic sphere: “The framework of the EaEU expanded to 6 countries. We have 180 million consumers within the framework of the EaEU. The total gross domestic product of our states approaches $3.1 trillion. Of course, we don't reach the EU level or G7. But I must note that the EaEU is not a political platform, it is not a club, as some structures appear to be. Of course, the EaEU countries are to implement legislature in the commercial and economic sector.”

The political scientist admits that there are many skeptics in the Asia-Pacific Region and Europe who believe that the Eurasian project will fail: “Some said that we set ourselves against the EU, set ourselves against China when creating the EaEU, because China developed the Silk Road Economic Belt program. And this is where the interests of two quite serious groups will clash, in the so-called point bifurcation, and will have no good consequences.”

However, Gusev promises that it will not happen. According to him, the EaEU development vector “is directed to accounting for the interests of China and the interests of the EaEU and the countries composing it. In other words, interests will overlap, the interests of the two quite large programs will not clash.”