Putin’s Eurasian Union Could Become Operational by 2015
Eurasian Union
Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that the Eurasian Union, which would unite the nations that belonged to the former Soviet Union, could be realized by 2015. He said that if all the states involved worked energetically, the union could be forged, being a matter of the future. Putin said that in the context of his unexpected success in signing in Sankt Petersburg of the free-trade zone agreement between most of the states that belonged to the Soviet Union.
Except for Georgia, which pulled out of the Commonwealth of the Independent States, the Baltic states, which never entered CIS, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, which manifested the will to sign, all the other states of this commonwealth agreed on Wednesday to have a free trade zone, which is a first step toward the Eurasian Union.
The surprise to this negotiations was offered by Ukraine, which also signed the treaty, at a time when it is close to signing a similar treaty with the European Union.
In an interview after the signing, the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, said that in his opinion his country just ended her every chance to adhere to the European Union by adhering to the document that would serve Putin for the creation of a new union of the former Soviet states.
Ukraine was due to sign in Brussels on Thursday the documents of a free-trade agreement with the European Union, as a step toward the integration to the EU, but the visit was cancelled by the EU officials over sentencing to jail the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who was found guilty in a trial and has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
The European Union conditioned the admission of Ukraine on Tymoshenko’s release, as sign that the judicial system was not use to the purpose of taking political adversaries out.
The president of Ukraine mentioned that a reform could be made to decriminalize the abuse of power and that the former PM could benefit from it, but the chances of that happening before the appeals are slim, since the parliament has not begun discussing it.
When asked about it, Yanukovych said he had never made any binding promise that Tymoshenko would be released, which prompted the European diplomats to believe they had been had.
With the Brussels flexing their muscles in hopes to intimidate Kiev, Yanukovych is compelled to play the card of adhering to the Eurasian zone, if it is only to negotiate from a strength position, as Putin put it in an article published in Izvestia, where he was explaining the use of the new union he had in mind.
On Wednesday, in Sankt Petersburg, the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have discussed the declaration that would be at the foundation of the new union. They agreed that it would be signed in December.
The Eurasian Union, Putin explained, will help coordinate the economies of the countries that are members of it, and will also build a connection between two blocs: the European Union and the Asia-Pacific region.
Putin was careful to say that it would not mean the recreation of the Soviet Union, but the building of a new body that would include every country that wants to become a member.
Vladimir Putin is expected to return to Kremlin as a president next year, and it seems that this is his new project for the Russian Federation: the building of a strong union, which would compensate the possible failure to enter the World Trade Organization, and would give Russia a prominent place in it.
In an interview given to the Russian televisions, Putin explained that he was the guarantee of stability, and that Russia was now capable to face all kind of economic challenges.
