Experts on EurAsEC summit results

Experts on EurAsEC summit results

By VK

This week Moscow hosted another EurAsEC summit. Its participants specified certain aspects of future Eurasian economic integration. On the eve of the summit there were talks of possible dissolution of the EurAsEC on the eve of the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union. However, as Dmitry Medvedev said, a full-scale treaty on creation of a Eurasian Economic Union can be signed only in 2015. Experts discussed the outcome of the recent summit and shared their points of view at a press-conference.

Alexei Malashenko, political expert, orientalist, Moscow Karenga Center expert

As in a trial, I’ll speak only the truth, at least as far as I understand it myself. First of all, the integration processes, despite all pompous claims made on summits, are developing very weakly. Secondly, all the organizations existing in the framework of this integration exist, for the most part, only virtually. If you take a look at their papers and publications, you’ll see that they only plan and try to foresee… or, like the EurAsEC, it is merely a cover for passing Russian money on to somewhere else – to Belarus, as we’ve seen, or to Kyrgyzstan. So I wouldn’t over-estimate the success of this integration, even though it is an important process and it would be stupid to deny that. But there are far too many obstacles in its way. So what’s EurAsEC? If you’ll try to understand it from its actions, you’ll get lost. We should rather look at it as a sort of ‘cocoon’ that will hold a certain foetus. If you look at the triad – the Customs Union, the Common Economic Space and Eurasian Union – you’ll see that it is the product of this ‘cocoon’ – good or bad, we don’t know yet, but still. They say that the summit produced no actual results. But if you look at the issue from an economic point of view, you’ll see that it couldn’t have done so. EurAsEC can be used as an instrument of further integration or it has to die off, like a cocoon. If the integration stops somewhere in its development, I would expect a rollback to the EurAsEC. But in the near future, while the idea of the Eurasian Union is still in the air – and this idea is also ambiguous and leaves a lot of questions, I mind you – EurAsEC will be fading away. And then we’ll see. For now, as you know, the Eurasian Union de facto stands for Russian-Kazakh bilateral relations.

Alexei Vlasov, political expert, VK’s chief editor

Let’s proceed from the documents. I mean the documents and other information that was released after the latest EurAsEC summit. As far as I understand, it is the first EurAsEC summit that didn’t release a great amount of data for those who are interested. It may mean that the disagreements between the three leaders of the organization passed to a new level without being resolved at all, or it can mean that they simply didn’t want to create additional fuss in the media and conducted certain negotiations ‘off the record’. I think the latter is the case. At the previous summit they decided to dissolve EurAsEC. The only disagreement between Minsk, Moscow and Astana was the time. I don’t know if my sources are accurate, but as far as I know it was Minsk who insisted on the quickest dissolution of the organization, before March 2012. So it would mean that after this summit the organization, according to Lukoshenko, should have ceased to exist, while Nazarbayev and the Russia side wanted to treat this issue step by step and give EurAsEC and Mansurov a chance to complete their mission by 31 December 2012 and to pass their powers to the Eurasian Economic Commission. This was the first intrigue. Secondly, there are three major documents among those sealed by this latest summit: first of all, there is the decision to create the Eurasian Commission, secondly, there is the unification of passport and customs control in the Customs Union states, and thirdly, the date of the sealing of the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty was preliminary set for the 1st of January 2015. But I think that if only these three questions were at the center of the summit’s attention, there was no need for a summit at all. It was all known in advance, the only question was the date of the treaty’s signature, but now it’s known too.

It is also interesting how the parties perceived the summit’s results. It would be interesting to quote the Russian President, who said that “We have productively wasted (sic!) time in discussions on the further promotion of the integration process – rather heated discussions”. It means that this summit wasn’t a summit of signed deals; it was a summit of checking and defining positions for the time being. This form is a bit unusual for such meetings: usually the national leaders gather to sign some treaties, close some questions. But this time – for the first time in the framework of the EurAsEC or the Customs Union or the Common Space we see some serious discussions during a summit.

I’ll also mention that some 20 documents were signed during the previous summit, and almost all of them were fundamental for the Customs Union, for the Common Space and for the future Eurasian Union. But there’s another question here: has anyone ever seen the full versions of all these documents?

The problem is: leaders make decisions, but is there any media coverage of these decisions? And what’s the deal with press coverage of the Customs Union, EurAsEC and the Common Economic Space in general? The experts who have no direct access to the Commission and don’t know Mansurov personally – how are they to get the information on the real state of affairs?

The main issue (apart from all the economic ones, of course) now is the question of media coverage of the progress of the main integration structures – and I think only RIA Novosti tries to resolve it. Today they create new supra-national institutions, but still all documents regarding the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Union are being ratified by national parliaments. So when will we get the ‘Eurasian bureaucracy’? What powers will these new officials now working in the Eurasian economic Commission have? Questions, questions, only questions. The communication between the decision-taking structures and the expert community is very important as it creates the public image of the integration structures. But unfortunately - and I’m a professor so I tend to give grades to everything – there is still no grade that could be attributed here, it’s all so bad. And the worst thing is that nothing has changed since 2009, when the Customs Union was being created. It seems that this time passed in vain. If the situation will not change, all efforts aimed at Eurasian integration, as I think, will be made in vain.

 

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