By Vestnik Kavkaza
A month is left until the signing the Agreement on the Eurasian Economic Union (the union will begin its operation since 2015). At the moment, experts from Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan are developing the functional part of the agreement – trade policy, technical regulation, industry, the agro-industrial complex, natural monopolies, transport, power systems, competition, state purchases, taxes, monetary policy, financial markets, intellectual property, services, investments, labor migration, macroeconomics, statistics, and so on. However, the work often pales into insignificance due to such political statements as “Eurasian integration: to be or not to be.” Russian politicians have no doubts in this matter.
“The nature of relations in the Eurasian Union is fundamentally different from the integration by the EU and the US,” a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Yevgeny Fedorov, says. “Take the document that was to be signed with and was partially signed by the Ukrainian authorities. They had to organize a coup in order to sign it. The 43rd article recognizes the underdeveloped status of Ukraine and of the people as well. Underdeveloped people, aboriginals - this is part of the colonial rhetoric. Certainly, integration can be different. Often integration is built on the principle of colony-metropolis. And sometimes integration is based on the principle of equality. The integration which emerged after the collapse of Soviet Union was built on the principle of equality. Today the Eurasian Union offers this type of integration.”
According to Fyodorov, “the Eurasian Union today is not just a cultural choice, it is a choice in terms of political power and competition. It is a path towards a single currency on the basis of a country's economy and not on the basis of currency trading for dollars and euros on the stock exchange being the foundation of monetary policy. This thesis can increase the efficiency of our economies twofold. It is clear that we are much richer than any EU country, than all of them together, and than each of them. Therefore, our lower living standards are not a matter of our wealth and low intelligence, they are a matter of our life conditions defined by political competition. Today's victories empower us to increase our standards of living in this competitive struggle and raise them higher, in line with the standards of living in countries founded by our grandfathers, great-grandfathers and great-great-grandfathers, which have greater potential than any of the European countries.”
Lyudmila Shuvalova, General Director of the Center for Social-Conservative Policy of Russia, recalls that 20 years have passed since the head of Kazakhstan expressed the idea of Eurasian integration. Its long-term defining aim that will determine the policy of the Eurasian continent in the long-term perspective. However, according to Shuvalova, the issue of sanctions has escalated greatly recently, the introduction of different sanctions on the part of Europe is being discussed. At the same time, the expert thinks that “Eurasian integration concerns the future of every country, of the future path of development. If the country follows the path of Eurasian integration it will be able to maintain its sovereignty, its culture, its national characteristics and benefit from the opportunities offered by the Eurasian Union - unity for the benefit of the country. Otherwise, it will have to remain on the periphery of some other integrational or economic processes which do not deal with the most important civilizational foundations of Eurasian integration.”
