On December 25, 2023, a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council was held in St. Petersburg. As one of the significant successes of the union last year, the meeting participants noted the conclusion of a free trade zone agreement with Iran on the eve of the meeting. Further development of EAEU ties with this country is expected to play an important role in promoting the continental North-South transport routes: they will play an important role in developing the export potential of the union’s member states, since, apart from the Russian Federation, all of them are landlocked, which limits their export opportunities. Also, the domestic market of Iran, a country with a population of more than 80 million people and a fairly high purchasing power, looks attractive for the EAEU countries. Customs duties between the EAEU countries and the Islamic Republic are planned to be reduced from 30 to 4.5%.
In addition, during the meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented to the participants a draft declaration on the further development of economic processes until 2030 with prospects until 2045, as in 2023 it was the Russian Federation that chaired the EAEU.
The results of the challenging but no less important year of 2023 for the union can be considered successful and encouraging. In November 2023, the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation reported an increase in the volume of mutual trade within the EAEU, up 9% in the first eight months of the year from the figures for the same period in 2022. In the near future, the mutual trade volume of member states could reach 100 billion dollars, such estimates have already been seen in the most positive scenarios for the past year of 2023. In 2023, the combined size of the economies of the member states of the union grew by 3.5%. In addition, the participants of the meeting noted the high share of settlements in national currencies, which reached 90%.
On February 1-2, 2024, another event of great importance for the EAEU countries was held in Almaty – a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in an expanded format. Apart from the heads of government of the union’s member states, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Uzbekistan, which has observer status at the EAEU, also took part in the meeting.
One of the main topics of discussion on the internal issues of the union was the need to consistently remove barriers in the domestic market, as well as to improve the quality of access of EAEU member states to third-country markets. To address the latter task, Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan signed a memorandum on the development of railway transport in the Eurasian Economic Union. The parties also reached an agreement on the creation of a mechanism for financial assistance to industrial cooperation between the member states, which will facilitate the development of international industrial projects under the auspices of the EAEU.
The program of the meeting, as well as its format, was also extended: for example, the heads of government of the EAEU took part in the Digital Almaty 2024 digital forum, putting forward a number of initiatives. The participants reaffirmed their commitment to the idea of creating a unified digital environment within the union, which will also include the possibility of common access of citizens of the EAEU member states to a range of public services. Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov suggested creating a single platform for sharing technological solutions, patents and innovative ideas, while Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said Russia would share advanced technologies to protect member states’ external economic ties in cyberspace. In addition to the heads of government of the EAEU states, the forum was attended by representatives of such countries as Iran, China and India.
As part of the discussion of the external aspects of the EAEU, the meeting outlined the priority areas where negotiations on reaching a free trade area agreement will be actively pursued in 2024. In particular, these include ongoing negotiations with the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Egypt. The success of the EAEU in these negotiations will open up large markets for its member states with a combined population of 400 million people. In addition, the expansion and improvement of the existing agreement with Vietnam, another major and dynamically growing partner, was identified as one of the EAEU’s priorities for 2024.
During the meeting, the issue of the need to intensify the negotiation process on the development of a temporary free trade agreement with Mongolia was once again raised. In this area, new prospects and opportunities have become visible in recent months: for example, the issue of lifting a number of trade restrictions was substantially considered during the last meeting of the Russian-Mongolian intergovernmental commission held in November 2023. Similar discussions were also held at meetings between Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan, and Mongolia and Belarus over the past year.
In addition, representatives of the Republic of Belarus made a special initiative at the meeting, suggesting holding a single summit of the EAEU, SCO and BRICS this year. This idea is fully in line with the logic of the Greater Eurasian Partnership, as well as the pairing of such initiatives as the EAEU and the SREB (the Silk Road Economic Belt, which envisages the formation of a common Eurasian trade and economic space and a transcontinental transport corridor). The need to develop such a negotiating format is also evidenced by a number of other events and processes in recent years, such as the development of political and economic contacts between Central Asian countries, the normalization of relations between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Tajikistan and Iran, the new level of relations between China and Uzbekistan, the deepening of the strategic partnership between Russia and China, the significant expansion of BRICS from 2024, as well as challenges to a significant proportion of members of all three organizations in the form of political or sanctions pressure from Western countries.
The year of 2024 is an anniversary year for the EAEU: this year marks the 10th anniversary of its foundation. In this regard, it seems quite natural and appropriate to create new Eurasian and even global initiatives with the direct participation of both the economic union itself and its member states and partners. Thus, the initiatives and plans announced by the participants in the meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council are further evidence of the growing political and economic solidarity among the countries located in the vast Eurasian space.
Boris Kushkhov, the Department for Korea and Mongolia at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”