Eurasian Economic Union
The Eurasian Economic Union is an economic union of five post-Soviet states located in Eurasia. The EAEU has an integrated single market. As of 2023, it consists of 183 million people and a gross domestic product of over $2.4 trillion.
The Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union was signed on 29 May 2014 by the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, and came into force on 1 January 2015. Treaties aiming for Armenia's and Kyrgyzstan's accession to the Eurasian Economic Union were signed on 9 October and 23 December 2014, respectively. Armenia's accession treaty came into force on 2 January 2015. Kyrgyzstan's accession treaty came into effect on 6 August 2015. Kyrgyzstan participated in the EAEU from the day of its establishment as an acceding state.
The EAEU encourages the free movement of goods and services, and provides for common policies in the macroeconomic sphere, transport, industry and agriculture, energy, foreign trade and investment, customs, technical regulation, competition, and antitrust regulation. Provisions for a single currency and greater integration are envisioned for the future. The union operates through supranational and intergovernmental institutions. The Supreme Eurasian Economic Council is the supreme body of the Union, consisting of the Heads of the Member States. The second level of intergovernmental institutions is represented by the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council. The day-to-day work of the EAEU is done through the Eurasian Economic Commission, the executive body of the Union. There is also a judicial body – the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union.
History
Background
In the Soviet Union, a Union Republic was a constituent federated political entity with a system of government called a Soviet republic, which was officially defined in the 1977 constitution as "a sovereign Soviet socialist state which has united with the other Soviet republics to form the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and whose sovereignty is limited by membership in the Union. As a result of its status as a sovereign state, the Union Republic de jure had the right to enter into relations with foreign states, conclude treaties with them and exchange diplomatic and consular representatives and participate in the activities of international organisations. The former Soviet republics that became independent states were part of the economy of the Soviet Union with its common technical standards, common infrastructure, territorial proximity, chains of cooperation, and common legal heritage. Through the signing of international agreements on trade, economic cooperation and integration, countries can achieve an increase in the efficiency of their economies, which suffered due to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. At the same time, all post-Soviet countries have moved to a market economy, implemented reforms and expanded trade and cooperation with the global economy. Over the past three decades, several negotiations have taken place on proposed integration projects.In order to reform the Soviet Union, the New Union Treaty and the draft European-Asian Union, among others, were proposed. In 1989, the European-Asian Union was proposed by the co-chairman of the Interregional Deputy Group Andrei Sakharov, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and with the participation of members of the group Galina Starovoitova, Anatoly Sobchak and others. Sakharov presented Gorbachev with his draft Constitution of the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia on 27 November 1989.
In the 1990s, Russia and the Central Asian republics were weakened economically and faced declines in GDP as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The member states of the union underwent economic reforms and privatisation. The process of Eurasian integration began immediately after the break-up of the Soviet Union. When the USSR began to fall in 1991, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia of the founding republics signed the Belavezha Accords on 8 December 1991, declaring that the Soviet Union would cease to exist and proclaimed the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place.
Commonwealth of Independent States
According to Article 7 of the Agreement on the creation the Commonwealth of Independent States of 8 December 1991 which effectively dissolved the Soviet Union as a single federal country, the High Contracting Parties indicate that through common coordinating institutions, their joint activities will consist in coordinating foreign policy activities, cooperation in the formation and development of a common economic space, common European and Eurasian markets, in the field of customs policy, in the development of transport and communication systems, cooperation in the field of environmental protection, migration policy and the fight against organised crime. According to the Article 5 of Belavezha Accords, the High Contracting Parties shall recognise and respect each other's territorial integrity and the inviolability of existing borders within the Commonwealth. They shall guarantee the openness of borders, freedom of movement of citizens and freedom of information within the Commonwealth.On 24 September 1993, at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States Council of Heads of State in Moscow, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan signed the Treaty on the Creation of the Economic Union which reinforces by an international agreement the intention to create an economic union through the step-by-step creation of a free trade area, a customs union and conditions for the free movement of goods, services, capital and labor. All these countries have ratified the Treaty and it entered into force on 14 January 1994. Turkmenistan and Georgia joined in 1994 and ratified the Treaty, but Georgia withdrew in 2009. On 24 September 1993, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Georgia signed the Agreement on the Creation of the interstate Euroasian Coal and Metal Community, which entered into force in 1995 for Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and in 1996 entered into force for Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine. The Euroasian Coal and Metal Community was terminated on 29 September 2004.
On 15 April 1994, the "Agreement on Ukraine's accession to the Economic Union as an associate member" was signed by Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Georgia but never entered into force due to non-ratification by Russia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan and Georgia, although all the others ratified. On 15 April 1994, at a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States Council of Heads of State in Moscow, all 12 post-Soviet states signed the international Agreement on the Establishment of a Free Trade Area in order to move towards the creation of an economic union. Article 17 also confirmed the intention to conclude a free trade agreement in services. Article 1 indicated that this was "the first stage of the creation of the Economic Union", but on 2 April 1999 the countries agreed to remove this phrase from the agreement.
Proposal to establish a new organisation
At a press conference of Commonwealth leaders in Almaty on 21 December 1991, Leonid Kravchuk refused to change the name of the organisation to the name Commonwealth of Euro-Asian and Independent States, but Nursultan Nazarbayev immediately stressed: "in the Declaration the economic area is called Eurasian." A number of agreements with the names "Eurasian", "Euro-Asian" or "Euroasian" have been signed in the CIS, such as the establishment of the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification and the Euroasian Broadcasting Union in 1992, the Eurasian Patent Convention and Organization in 1994, and the Eurasian Cinema Academy in 1997.On 29 March 1994, during a speech at Moscow State University, the first President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev complained that the CIS was inadequate and did not provide the integration that the countries badly needed. He proposed the creation of a Eurasian Union of States as a new organisation completely separate from the CIS. The Eurasian Union of States was proposed as a combination of the economic union and political union. For the first time it was suggested to use the name "Eurasian" for an economic union rather than "Euro-Asian" or "Euroasian". The Eurasian Economic Union traces its history back to Nazarbayev's proposal. He suggested the idea of creating a Union as a regional trade bloc in order to connect to and profit from the growing economies of Europe and East Asia. The vision would be to simplify the free flow of goods across Eurasia. The idea was quickly seen as a way to bolster trade, boost investment in Central Asia, Armenia and Belarus, and serve as a complement to the Eastern Partnership.
However, earlier, on 22 March 1994, Nazarbayev spoke at the Chatham House in London with an analysis of trends in post-Soviet integration and a justification for the need to create a new effective and truly functioning union based on an integration core with the possible name "Euro-Asian Union". The union should be built around three main pillars: common supranational bodies for managing the economy, defence and foreign policy, a single economic space and a common defence complex. The president of Kazakhstan launched an information campaign. On 3 June 1994, he signed the Plan on the Formation of the Eurasian Union of States, which was sent to all the heads of the CIS participant states. On 6 June 1994, a press conference was held at the presidential residence by Marat Tajin, head of the Information and Analytical Centre of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan and Imangali Tasmagambetov, Nazarbayev's assistant. Marat Tajin spoke at a round table discussion on Prospects for Eurasian Integration in Moscow on 14 June 1994 at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At a hearing in the State Duma of the Russian Federation in Moscow on 5 July 1994, Ambassador Tair Mansurov outlined the essence of the project. Nazarbayev later complained that in 1994 "there was complete rejection" of his idea: "I hoped for the support of Russia and Yeltsin personally, however, there was no such support and the attitude was one of sarcasm." Thus, the work was carried out within the framework of the CIS and separate treaties without the creation of a new organisation.