MOSCOW: Russia is planning further cooperation with former Soviet countries as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) strengthens Russia’s sphere of influence in the face of sanctions from the European Union and the West.
The founding treaty of the EEU, which was signed by three member states; Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, came into force.
Armenia’s accession treaty comes into forced Kyrgyzstan is expected to join the union by the end of 2015. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, former states of the EEU, formed a customs union in order to build an economic and commercial alliance that guarantees the circulation of goods and services between the three EEU member states.
The first custom measures were signed between Russia and Belarus. However, the actual extent to which enlargement of the union will benefit new member states is of crucial importance for the future economic and political aspects of the Eurasian pact.
Putin’s Russia considers the EEU a powerful alliance that can rival the European Union. The union would lead to the revival of the “glorious” times of the Soviet Union through centralizing the union under the presidency of Moscow, like the institutionalization of the EU in Brussels.
In the face of tightened economic sanctions from the West, Russia is now looking for greater cooperation with ex-Soviet countries in an effort to strengthen energy, defense and strategic ties in northern Eurasian countries, in a bid to revive Russia’s economy that was badly hit by U.S. and EU sanctions over its expansionist policies in the break-away territories in former Soviet states like eastern Ukraine. “In any case, it would be politically short-sighted of the European Union to ignore the new Eurasian reality,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vasily Nebenzya said.
