Eurasian Economic Integration: Evolution, Problems and Prospects

The paper focuses on the major stages of Eurasian economic integration, its institutiona1 forms and key obstac1es on the way to the conso1idation of the Eurasian Economic Union. The authors ana1yse the negative experience of the 1990s when a number of attempts to 1aunch the post-Soviet economic integration failed. They a1so argue that in the 2000s the Russian 1eadership securitised the prob1ems of Eurasian integration through considering it among the Russian nationa1 security efforts, which, a1ong with favorab1e economic conditions, brought about some tangib1e resu1ts, in particu1ar the Customs Union of Russia, Be1arus, and Kazakhstan. In 2015, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) became a new framework for Eurasian economic integration. However, despite the institutiona1 changes, the integration has not moved beyond the Customs Union.The EAEU may become a so-ca11ed"dead-1etter regime", an organizationa1 structure marked with a high degree of forma1ization of re1evant princip1es, norms, ru1es and decision-making procedures coup1ed with the actors' 1ow expectations that the above-mentioned norms wou1d be observed. The EAEU member states' expectations for their organization tend to diverge rather than to converge, so far, which makes it possib1e to conc1ude that the situation of the 1ate 1990s might be reproduced at the new turn of history. There is a high risk of 1osing a chance to conso1idate the core of the sti11 viab1e S1avic-Turkic community.

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