ABSTRACT

Processes of integration in the post-Soviet area are constituents of an international process of world economic collaboration and regionalization, and subject to regularities that govern it. But they display a number of specific features:

1. They involved former Soviet republics once parts of a single state. However, CIS states belong to a number of regional formations with bordering non-CIS states.
2. The formations are at the initial stage of economic integration.
3. The process of creating and running the formations includes an express political component.
4. Development of the formations is interdependent and duplication apparent in certain functions. 

Read the full report: http://www.vki.hu/workingpapers/wp-182.pdf

Svetlana Glinkina

This report is part of a wider projet:

The project entitled “Hungary’s CIS strategy with special regard to Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan” gave new impetus to post-Soviet research in the IWE and its partner the Hungarian Academy of Sciences’ Research Institute of Sociology. The new opportunity was important especially because the CIS or post-Soviet space had become a neglected area in Hungary over the previous 15 years and there was a research gap to fill.

Meanwhile the post-Soviet space has been returning to the political agenda in the last year or two, due to rising ambitions in a strengthened Russia, sharp conflicts within the post-Soviet space, and worldwide problems of energy supply and prices. The research seeks to provide up-to-date answers to such emerging questions.

The project sets out to cover a wide range of essential issues about the CIS space, notably the three most important countries for Hungary: Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. It deals with the issues such as the regional energy prospects, the integration and disintegration processes among the CIS states, the formulation of relations with the European Union and with other important actors worldwide, and the effects of the world economy in the region. In conjunction with the key economic questions, it examines the current social and political changes and the various political systems.

The intention is to create not just a network of Hungarian specialists on the post- Soviet space, but an international network of researchers from these newly independent states. Inviting outside researchers and think-tanks to join us in this project was a first step. The IWE is currently working with Russian and Ukrainian partners.

This paper written by Svetlana Glinkina, deputy director of the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, analyses the important and challenging issue of how Russian integration ideas and initiatives within the CIS space fit into or clash with EU ideas. It is highly topical. Post-Soviet ideas of integration are usually seen as contrasting with EU ideas on integrating several CIS states, such as Ukraine or Moldova, into EU structures. Is this the only option? Naturally, the latest political events, such as the Georgian-Russian war of August 2008, tend to support this “either/ or” analysis. But from a longer perspective, Russian/EU cooperation on “common neighbourhood issues” seems inevitable.

The first part gives an overview of the main Russian-initiated integration groups within the CIS space over the past 15 years, listing also some reasons why they failed to be realized. The second is devoted to one of the most challenging economic initiatives: the Common Economic Space, which aims to integrate Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, the region’s four largest economies. The third examines changing Russian approaches to cooperating with other CIS countries. The final part tries to put the European “common neighbourhood” into a special perspective, a so-called “Russia/ Euroeast” dimension.

Zsuzsa Ludvig  - project leader