View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-papers Repository The Eurasian Economic Union: Balancing Sovereignty and Institute of Integration European Law Working Papers Rilka Dragneva Paper: (University of Birmingham) 10/2016 © The Author(s) Institute of European Law Birmingham Law School University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham B15 2TT United Kingdom For more information on the IEL, see: birmingham.ac.uk/IEL For more information on this Working Paper Series, please contact: Mr Robert Doolan, IEL Administrator:
[email protected] The Eurasian Economic Union: Balancing Sovereignty and Integration Rilka Dragneva, Birmingham Law School Forthcoming in R. Petrov, P. van Elsuwege, eds., Post-Soviet Constitutions and Challenges of Regional Integration (Routledge, 2017) Introduction On 1 January 2015, a new international organisation was launched in the post-Soviet space, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). Building on the previous integration efforts of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, the formation of an economic union signalled the advancement of the integration agenda and was described as ‘epoch-making’ by its political ‘godfathers’.1 This ‘deepening’ of integration was to be accompanied by improved institutions, including the drafting of a comprehensive Treaty to raise the effectiveness of integration. That such an ‘improvement’ would (and even should) strengthen the supranational nature of the project was a reasonable assumption. Firstly,