During 2010 – the year of its presidency at the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Moscow is set to boost social and economic cooperation on the post-Soviet space. First Vice Premier Igor Shuvalov announced intent to bring together presidents of all member states in the spring. Their proposals regarding the organization’s upgrading will be researched and brought to a single denominator, and then approved at the nearest summit. Mr. Shuvalov already began to meet with the representatives of the CIS member states. Yet we have a question here. Is Moscow indeed prepared for a breakthrough in the integration process or is it another imitation of “modernization” efforts?
The appointment of Mr. Shuvalov, “Putin’s Marshall”, as a national coordinator of the Russian Federation in the CIS points to the seriousness of Moscow’s intentions. His duties include control over the realization of projects approved by the CIS member states and coordination of efforts among all the authorities, involved in cooperation. Let us remind that he was in charge of the successful G8 summit and stood for Mr. Putin during the preparation and adoption of Concept-2020. Of course, Mr. Shuvalov was also a coordinator of the project “GDP doubling by 2010”, which proved to be a total failure, but it may also be a natural result of the existing management model. That is why Mr. Shuvalov is seriously considered for premiership. His supervision of the integration projects over the post-Soviet space (including the Customs Union and the Eurasian Economic Community) testifies to their importance.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning, Mr. Putin’s recent remark on the goals of the Customs Union: “Since January 1, 2012, we will have a new, more ambitious objective – to have the single economic space. This is a deeper level of integration”. So we can see a pattern. Ten years ago, Mr. Putin emerged on the post-Soviet arena with an idea of the Eurasian Economic Community. In 2010, we have the Customs Union. If everything goes on as the Premier expects, this economic alliance, joining 170 million people, can boost inward capital investments and leading technologies, and will be interesting for other CIS member states. Some also say that the political technologists prepare a new platform for the Russian leader – “leader of Eurasia after 2012”.
But let us get back to reality. Obviously, partnership of CIS member states has not become Moscow’s priority and rather remained on paper in the form of public declarations on foreign policy. It is also true that many of Mr. Putin’s promises have lost their value. The majority of widely advertized strategies in fact proved to be the elements of political manipulations. The same may happen with the current CIS upgrade.
But let us look at the bright side and imagine that work is done and positive results are achieved. What will Mr. Shuvalov deal with? There are four blocks in the CIS: politics, socio-economy, humanitarian issues, and security. Three of these (except for security) will be handled by Mr. Shuvalov. It is likely that he will begin with reviving the Strategy of CIS Economic Development until 2020, which outlines all the problems of the organization. This document was signed (albeit with reservations) in November 2008 by Prime Ministers of nine countries, including Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, for instance, refused from signing the strategy of transit and use of energy resources. Moldova excluded the idea of the single informative and humanitarian space within the CIS. Ukraine left out the clauses that limited its legal rights of integration into the EU or contradicted its obligations as WTO member. Ukraine also opposed to the integration of education and the creation of a single labor market.
After Ukraine elected its new president, the country’s possible shift toward Eurasia has got into spotlight. Yet this country is unlikely to be a more reliable partner for Russia than Belorussia.
I believe that we should separate the reform of the CIS from the coordination strategy among the CIS member states. “Integration” is not a correct term here. It is worth noting that one of the technical aspects of the reform, i.e. inventory of all agreements is already being carried out by the CIS management bodies. Several practical steps have been taken. Recently, Moldova, Kazakhstan and Armenia suggested that the Economic Court of the CIS should be dissolved. Every CIS member annually pays tens of thousands of dollars as a membership fee, although the Court heard only 65 cases since 1995, thus having proved its ineffectiveness. There are also other structures to be reconsidered. The countries need to draft a diligent agenda of the CIS management board, disregarding the problems that cannot be solved within this organization, such as ethno-territorial conflicts or egoism of the national elites.
The Strategy-2020 has significant flaws, particularly in the humanitarian sector. So far, the issue of mutual recognition of educational documents was not settled. There are no mechanisms of cooperation among the CIS higher educational establishments. There is no practice of voluntary training, which is of major importance to the promotion of both the Russian language on the post-Soviet space and of national cultures in Russia. All these are still a matter of scholarly discussion, although it is these issues that in fact bring us together. Also, it is important to raise questions on human rights and effective legal system in the CIS. Of course, this problem is aggravated by distrust of Russia and its attempts at using Russian-language minorities in the CIS member states as the fifth column. However, there is a solution to this problem. For instance, Russian public and non-government organizations could support civil initiatives. In the beginning of February, President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree on creating the Foundation of Public Democracy and the Council on International Affairs, which can draft a strategy in this field. There is obviously a reason to work in this direction, considering the proximity of Russia’s “authoritative democracy” and “state-managed democratization” in many of its neighbor states.
Author: Alexander Karavayev Source: http://www.ng.ru 16 February 2010
