TOGETHER OR SEPARATELY

Two summits held in Minsk - one by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan and the other one by the CIS Council of Heads of State - gave much food for thought as regards the current level and prospects for integration and cooperation in the post-Soviet space. There are more questions than answers though. The most important of them are: where to are moving the organizations uniting the republics of the former Soviet Union and is there really a chance to implement Eurasian integration?

The CIS summit was held in an atmosphere traditional for this structure's forums. There were a lot of statements and less specifics but the principal point was preserved: the very probability that the guidelines for integration adopted within the Commonwealth framework may eventually benefit the CIS member states.

The summit is best remembered for inviting Georgia to rejoin the CIS. It was voiced by head of Belarus Alyaksandr Lukashenka who reminded it to "our friends from Georgia that the CIS door is always open." However, the Georgian Foreign Ministry and George Margvelashvili, the ruling coalition's presidential candidate who was subsequently elected head of Georgia, responded immediately with statements that the Georgian people had made its choice in favour of integration into Euro-Atlantic structures and the government of the country had no intention to change this orientation.

Yet the main subject of the sharp debates both at the CIS leaders' meeting and at the summit of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council was Ukraine. The reason behind this is that Kiev is ready to sign an association agreement with the European Union which runs counter to Eurasian integration plans being promoted above all by Russia. As the Soviet Union was unthinkable without Ukraine, it is equally hard to imagine any form of integration in the post-Soviet space, whether the EurAsEC or the Customs Union (CU), without it. Although the Ukrainian side does not reject the possibility of its fully fledged participation in the Eurasian integration, Moscow makes Ukraine choose either the CU or the EU. Russian President Vladimir Putin explained in Minsk that setting up a free trade zone between Ukraine and the European Union would inevitably become an obstacle to Ukraine's simultaneous participation in the Customs Union. Because goods produced in Ukraine will be subject to EU rules and the issue of protecting the CU market will arise in this connection.

Vladimir Putin also expressed doubt that the Ukrainian economy would be able to seamlessly cope with European technical regulations. "Those are very good standards but in order to produce goods complying with them, the economy must be modernized. This requires large investments. According to our expert estimates, it is around hundreds of billions of euros. Are there such sources?" the Russian leader wondered.

However, the Ukrainian president regards as incorrect the very formulation of the issues on the need for Kiev to choose between the association with the EU and cooperation with the Customs Union. Kiev is considering its integration prospects in the EU and TC in the context of "further enhancing economic cooperation on the Eurasian continent".

According to Yanukovych, the signing of the association agreement with the EU will open up additional opportunities to Ukraine for developing trade and investment cooperation among CIS states. But the most important thing is that Yanukovych has opposed creating artificial barriers to trade and economic relations between CIS and Customs Union member states. Thus, he made it clear that he considered Russia's economic policy in the post-Soviet space as a tool of pressure, in particular, on Ukraine.

Claims against Russia's policy were outlined not only by Yanukovych but also by his counterparts from Kazakhstan and Belarus. Nursultan Nazarbayev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka presented their critique in the context of the activity of the Customs Union established on the basis of a decision taken by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan back in August 2006. The Kazakh president expressed dissatisfaction that there is politicization in the work of the Eurasian Economic Commission which regulates the operation of the Customs Union and the Common economic space. He also complained that, when signing the agreement on the Customs Union, "special treatment as regards access to the grid" was promised to Kazakhstan but the country has got none of it in the end and therefore it can not carry out normal transit of energy supplies to Belarus via Russia. Moreover, Nazarbayev complained to his counterparts that his country is facing problems of access of their products to the market of the Customs Union, specifically, Russia.

Despite the existence of the Customs Union, the Belarusian president noted in turn, the number of exceptions and limitations has not only failed to decrease but even increased while businessmen complain about the customs procedures. In Lukashenka's opinion, advancement along the path of integration should not be continued until pragmatic goals of integration have been met.

Thus Nazarbayev and Lukashenka actually demanded that Russia should scrap all kinds of restrictive and prohibitive measures which in fact would mean admission of their products to the Russian market. Moreover, in order to make the integration mechanism in the post-Soviet space more effective, Nazarbayev even suggested dissolving the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) and expanding the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The message is that there is no need to have two parallel organizations with similar rules.

As a result it was confirmed that the Customs Union would be called the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as from 2015 while the Eurasian Economic Community will cease to exist as having accomplished its mission. At the same time Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan which are EurAsEU members and Armenia having a status of an observer at this structure to be abolished, have been given the green light to join the Customs Union and the EAEU. However, the presidents of Belarus and Kazakhstan voiced a slightly different opinion on Armenia's membership of the Customs Union. Nazarbayev and Lukashenka actually conditioned CU membership for the poorest country of the South Caucasus and in addition having no common borders with the Customs Union on the need to prepare a "road map" for it and on much work to be done by Yerevan to unify Armenian legislation. It is obvious that such work cannot be completed in one or two years. But the most important thing is that the leaders of Belarus and Kazakhstan made statements directly or indirectly addressing Armenia and urging it at least to think whether makes sense to continue its aggressive and hostile policy towards its Turkic neighbours - Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Thus Alyaksandr Lukashenka said it unambiguously that Azerbaijan's opinion should be reckoned with when admitting Armenia to the Customs Union. "Armenia has one unresolved territorial dispute with Azerbaijan. So there will be questions from the Azerbaijani side. We should reckon with Azerbaijan's opinion," he said. Lukashenka also recalled that although Belarus is a member of the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization) of which Armenia is also a member, Minsk is building close military technical cooperation with Baku: "Azerbaijan is buying our brand-new products, weapons. I therefore emphasize that Belarus and Azerbaijan have no secret topics."

For his part, Nursultan Nazarbayev announced Turkey's intention to join the CU. The Kazakh leader cited the following arguments evoking a positive attitude to Turkey's likely membership of the Customs Union: "Turkey is a large country, we have common borders; it is a bog country and a big economy". In addition, after admitting the Turks to the TC "they will stop saying in the West that we are building a Soviet Union".

In connection with Nazarbayev's statement, his last year's visit to Turkey comes to mind during which he urged the Turks, whose number around the world runs into 200m, to unite the world and create a powerful geopolitical alliance. So it can be safely said that Nazarbayev's statement in Minsk implies not only from and most likely not so much from Ankara's desire to become a member of Eurasian integration as from the Kazakh leader's desire to see Turkey and other Turkic states involved in one civilizational project. All the more so that this prospect stands a real chance to be implemented given that, faced with the EU reluctance to admit Turkey to its ranks, Turkey has found itself in a kind of geopolitical vacuum. In fact, Ankara's interest in rapprochement not only with the CU but also the Shanghai Cooperation Organization being expressed by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government is connected with Turkey's search for its rightful place in the global configuration. Quite remarkable in this context is the fact that Turkey is discussing the issue of joining the CU simultaneously with the announced renewal of negotiations between Turkey and the EU. According to analysts, Turkey's prospects for accession to the Customs Union could give an extra bargaining chip to Ankara.

But in the context of Turkey's Eurasian prospects, the Customs Union member stated are faced with the factor of Armenia which agreed to take part in the Eurasian integration process under pressure from Russia. Meanwhile the Minsk summit has proved once again that Armenia's influence on regional processes is negligible and that even with its consent to join the CU it can not be of any significant value to participants of this and other post-Soviet structures, unlike for instance Azerbaijan and Turkey. And this despite the fact that self-sufficient Azerbaijan has distanced itself from involvement in various geopolitical projects while Turkey, a NATO member, is viewed as a close partner to Euro-Atlanticism. With this in mind, Yerevan's aspirations to take part in the CU together with Nagornyy-Karabakh, Armenians' hopes that Azerbaijan's occupied territories will be perceived as common economic space with Armenia are absolutely futile. The position of Kazakhstan and Belarus as well as Russia's silent reaction to relevant statements by Lukashenka and Nazarbayev clearly show Armenia where its place is to which Nagornyy-Karabakh bears no relation.