By Vestnik Kavkaza
In late May, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev participated in meetings of the Council of CIS Heads of Governments and the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council. According to the Director General of the Caspian Cooperation Institute, political analyst Sergey Mikheyev, the Commonwealth of Independent States has a future, but in a form of different integration structures.
According to the political analyst, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev believes that the CIS, despite its current problems, is a promising form of cooperation. “In my opinion, the union of these territories, peoples, states within the context of our common past experience, is not some kind of voluntarism. It was a reflection of objective interdependence, it was a reflection of objective geopolitical and geo-economic reasons. And these reasons to a significant degree remain the same. If you remove the political factor, it is advantageous for us to cooperate. Many of those ties, primarily economic, had been severed after the collapse of the Soviet Union for the sake of political expediency, not because of their unprofitability,” Sergey Mikheyev considers.
The expert comes to the conclusion that “in theory, the CIS can have some certain future, although it is clear that now it is teetering on the brink. The CIS is practically unviable in the form of its foundation in 1991. But in the form of some other integration associations, I think that the countries of the CIS have a future.”
Sergey Mikheyev believes that the Eurasian Economic Union is one such successfully developing association. According to him, last week's meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Kazakhstan shows that “the EAEU continues working, despite the opinions that it was an empty, meaningless initiative and a not-well-grounded organization was about to be shot down soon. The countries involved have shown that this is not a momentary, but a very deliberate strategic choice. Primarily, President Nazarbayev’s position clearly shows that this is a deliberate strategic choice.”
Moreover, Mikheyev notes that blaming the EAEU for a reincarnation of the Soviet Union is ruined by signing the agreement on a free trade zone between the Eurasian Union and Vietnam: “The joining of Vietnam has opened a new page in the project. Vietnam has opened the gates for other countries. After this agreement, the joining of other countries has become more probable.”
As for the West, the political analyst is sure that they will have to reckon with the fact that the EEU exists: “Despite gloating over the occasion in some Baltic countries of the former Soviet republics, they will have to recognize this fact. And they have recognized it. They will work, including the Eurasian Union, as the real subject is both economics and politics. And this is absolutely unavoidable. Those European experts who are more serious speak quite definitely about this point. Despite all the difficulties, European business is making plans to work in this market, because it is huge and promising.”
