The Eurasian Economic Union: from an Historical Examination to its Legal and Economic Analysis with Particular Focus on the Development of Belarus Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades doctor rerum politicarum (Dr. rer. pol.) der Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität Rostock Rostock, 2018 vorgelegt von: Alessandro Tripolone aus Rostock geboren am 27.07.1987 in Catania (Italien) Gutachter: 1. Gutachter: PD MDg. Dr. habil. Friedhelm B. Meyer zu Natrup Institut für Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaften, Universität Rostock 2. Gutachter: Prof. Dr. Jörn Dosch Institut für Politik- und Verwaltungswissenschaften, Universität Rostock Datum der Einreichung: 01.12.2017 Datum der Verteidigung: 17.01.2018 ii The Eurasian Economic Union: From an Historical Examination to its Legal and Economic Analysis with Particular Focus on the Development of Belarus iii PREFACE Since 2015 the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU or EEU1) between Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation has begun to work concretely. The EEU represents a contemporary project of economic integration for the post-Soviet space and a tangible effort to determinate the economic future and development of the entire Eurasia. Initially, the idea about the realization of a Eurasian community was elaborated by Kazakh President Nazarbayev during a speech at the Moscow State University in the year 1994. By his discourse, the Kazakh Head of Sate presented a simple and fascinating idea: to establish a functioning alliance of states that are unified by economic ties with the target to achieve stability and security in Eurasia. Through this passage is possible to discover the nature of the actual integration project of the EEU, based on the idea by Nazarbayev, namely the realization of a cooperation of states, that are each other economic interdependent, in order to favorite better their trade, the improvement of their national economies and the coordinated development of their standards of production. This proposal of economic cooperation as key of integration and collaboration between the post- Soviet nations was supported by Russian President Putin during the year 2011 formally. Specifically, Putin called for the institution of an economic union between the former Soviet- states, aimed to achieve economic stability in Eurasia against the challenges of the globalization, in response to the critic market and financial conditions that since 2008 are still generating trade economic shocks on the entire Eurasia. Exactly, the adverse economic situation of last decade for the former Soviet countries, as for example Belarus, strong dependent on Russia economically, can be delineated as principal reason that has favored the development of the Eurasian integration process. The EEU must be framed as a direct evolution of the previous forms of integration of the post- Soviet space started since 1991 with the dissolution of the USSR and the foundation of the CIS. In this scenario, between the nineties and the early 2000s, were created different projects of cooperation, especially between Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan (the troika2), to better define and improve their strong interdependent economic collaboration. Here, projects as the EURASEC (2000), the Customs Union (2010) or the Single Economic Space (2012) were already real attempts to restore the interaction of the post-Soviet countries in a system similar to the USSR, based 1 The curtailment of Eurasian Economic Union will be used in the work between EAEU and EEU indistinctly. 2 Vinokurov Evgeny (2017): “Eurasian Economic Union: Current state and preliminary results”. In Russian Journal of Economics 3 (2017). P. 56 iv though on an economic basis. Concerning this last point, a fundamental aspect is the only economic nature of the actual project of the EEU. But, if from a side Nazarbayev and Lukashenka do not see any politic involvement of the Union other the economic cooperation, excluding de facto every possible form of limitation of their national sovereignty in favor of Russia – the predominant actor in the Union; from the other side, their Russian counterpart, although not explicitly, sees the EEU as instrument of geopolitical ambitious, to allow Russia to recover again a leader role in the region, increasing its position globally, proposing Moscow, as underlined by the Neo-Eurasianism, one of the poles of the modern world. In a time line, the EEU Treaty, ratified on May 29, 2014 in Astana, is seen as a natural continuation of the Customs Union, with the expressed volition of its members to strengthen their economic interaction as condition to further develop their integration. The cooperation, opened to all those states that want and can bring benefits to the entire Eurasian community, must be conducted, as expressed in the preamble of the Treaty, guaranteeing equal sovereignty and solidarity between all the participants. In this regard, the EEU contract has the principal targets: to develop measures, as exchange of specialized personnel, that can favorite the integration and economic development of the member-states (article 23); to realize a common market with the removal of barriers and custom duties (article 28); to reduce the economic diversification between the national economies of the member-countries, improving the foreign trade policy of the Union and asserting its efficiency in the global economic scenario (article 33); to implement an agreed macroeconomic policy, through the utilization of common legal framework, aimed to achieve a balanced economic development within the Union (article 62); to ensure freedom of trade in services, incorporation, activities and investments within the Union (article 65); to coordinate the energy policy of the member-countries, forming gradually common energy markets (article 79); and to create an agreed policy in labor migration, which can allow a right and equilibrate involvement of the citizens of the Union for their employment in the different work sectors of the states of the Union (article 96). Precisely, the abolishment of custom duties in the mutual trade, the creation of common energy markets and the possibility for the citizens of the Union to work in every country of the EEU legally, are the principal reasons that have mostly convinced Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia respectively to be part of this integration project. Considering the targets of the EEU, namely the volition to create a solid mutual trade, guaranteeing the four fundamental freedoms (goods, services, capital and workers), its economic v overview of the biennium 2015-2016 shows a general decrease of its economic indicators especially in direct comparison with the year 2014: in 2016 the Gross Domestic Product of the Union was 1 485 422 USD billion against 2 404 881 USD billion of 2014. The explanation of the economic course of the EEU touches different aspects, as the causes that stay on the basis of its stagnation. In this scenario is possible to identify external factors: as the consequences of the Russian geopolitical choices or the drop of the oil price; and internal factors: as the still presence of barriers, bilateral accords for the hydrocarbons market within the internal commerce of the member-states, or the volition of the participants to not loose they political autonomy towards Russia. All these factors are nowadays playing a decisive role in the evolution of the EEU, which rests, especially in comparison to the European Union or USA, still a relative small economic organization. Hence, to further expand the position of the EEU in the global economy, the member-countries must: follow the mutual obligations of the Treaty; eliminate board controls, favoring the mutual trade; and utilize their technologies, specialists and infrastructure to act all compact in favor of the Union, as an economic block. All these aspects, from the motivations that have conducted the actual participants to subscribe the Astana Treaty, to the provisions of the Treaty and the actual economic situation of the EEU’s members, will be the object of the following analysis. I Division of the work The work, realized in cooperation between the University Rostock and the Academy of Public Administration under the Aegis of the President of the Republic of Belarus, will start the examination through an excursus about the geographical, cultural and historical significance of Eurasia. After that, the analysis will be concentered on the inspection of the disposition of the contract of the EEU. Successively, will be researched and reported the economic situation of the member-states during the biennium 2015-2016 predominantly. In detail, the entire work is subdivided in three macro-chapters and a final part where will be reported the results and conclusions of the study. The first chapter, entitled “Historical excursus of the Eurasianism and the significance of the Eurasian Economic Union for its participants”, is divided in two principal sections. The first section deals with philosophical and political current of Eurasianism; while the second examinates the impact of the Eurasianism on the national level of the current members of the Union, analyzing their expectaions of the Eurasian integration project. vi In coorelaction with the Eurasian idea, will be proposed, after have defined the meaning of Eurasia by the concepts of Sir Mackinder geographically and strategically, an accurated examination of this theory: from the classical philosophical thought of Danilevsky and Trubetzkoy,