EurAsEC to grow towards ever closer integration
On 5 July, the Russian Permanent Mission to the EU organised an informal event about prospects of a closer cooperation between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC). The Single Economic Area between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan was enacted in January 2011 and the Eurasian Economic Commission was established in November the same year.
The Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, stressed that the integration of these three countries reflect “the new realities in the post-Soviet states”, following the long process of close co-operation between them.
The process of integration between the three ex-Soviet countries resembles in many ways the initial stages of the European project, leading to the creation of the EU. EurAsEC started in late 1990s as a customs union and the ambition of the leaders is to have an economic union by year 2015.
Similarly to the EU, the central executive body of the EurAsEC is the Eurasian Economic Commission, that everyone refers to as 'the Commission', with the headquarters in Moscow. The establishment of the central executive body was stressed as the new phase in regional integration.
The Commission has very similar competences as its EU counterpart, including the competence on signing international trade agreements. In practical terms, that would mean that any trade agreement between the EU and any of the three countries, would have to go through the EurAsEC bodies and encompass all of its members.
When confronted with the fact that the EU trade policy has changed and that after the failure of trade negotiations 'en bloc' with ASEAN, Andean group and Mercosur, the EU has moved back to dealing with trade issues on a bilateral level, ambassador Chizhov said that he hopes “ EurAsEC would be more successful in negotiating trade agreements than other blocs”.
Natalia Yacheistova, Deputy Director of the Trade Policy Department of the EurAsEC Commission, pointed out that the integration is open for other countries and stressed that recently Kyrgyzstan expressed interest to join the EurAsEC and is most likely, with time, to become the fourth member of the Eurasian integration. It was also mentioned that Ukraine has expressed interest to participate in some activities of the EurAsEC as an observer, but that it is hard to imagine fruitfulness of such cooperation.
Vasiliy Boitsov, Director of the Department for Technical Regulation and Accreditation of the EurAsEC Commission, emphasised the early positive indicators of the integration in the region, pointing out to the increase in both GDPs and production levels in all three countries, as well as improvement of the business climate. It was stressed that the EU companies have a growing interest for the 170 million people market and that, when gas, oil and raw materials are substracted, the EU has a positive trade exchange with the EurAsE
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