View from Minsk: New five-year plan of the EAEU. Main threats
During the anniversary meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, which was held on May 29 in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan), all heads of state of the EAEU celebrated the fact that “the union has taken place and is functioning successfully.”
Traps for the EAEU
Of course, it must be recognized that Eurasian integration has many problematic aspects related to the need to “harmonize” the economic interests of the business circles of the participating countries, create a single energy market, and find a compromise between the common benefit and national protectionism.
However, the very precedent that the EAEU exists and develops after the actual declaration of war on this project by the collective West, the herald of which was Hilary Clinton in 2012, already indicates success.
However, it is obvious that competitors will not give up the idea of torpedoing Eurasian integration, for which they will set various traps, use any contradictions between the EAEU members to turn public opinion against the idea of rapprochement as such, provoke isolationist sentiments in Russia and Russophobic nationalism in others states of the Union.
In this situation, “independent” media will deliberately inflate economic contradictions to the level of large-scale political problems, and any negative topics of the past, for example, Stalinist repressions, will be deliberately presented in the narrow national context of the suppression of small “oppressed” peoples by Moscow.
At the same time, myths will be spread in Russia itself about “freeloaders” parasitizing on the Russian economy, and the inexpediency of any allies for Moscow at all, since the superpower has oil and gas, as well as an army and navy.
It is clear that it is incorrect to consider such “stuffing” solely in the focus of the machinations of geopolitical competitors, but it is obvious that the above ideas, no matter how good intentions explain their appearance, objectively work for the opponents of the Eurasian Union.
After all, at one time the already mentioned Hilary Clinton voiced the nightmare of the North American establishment - the “reincarnation of the USSR”, which certain circles in Washington managed to discern in the harmless and herbivorous project of the Eurasian Economic Union.
At the same time, “kittens must be nipped in the bud,” and it seems that it is precisely this logic that explains the escalation of confrontation on the part of the West since Putin, Nazarbayev and Lukashenko announced their intention to create the EAEU.
As a result, the future Union was dealt a powerful blow in the form of a coup d'etat in Ukraine; however, the exclusion of Kiev from the Eurasian integration plans, although it weakened the project, did not stop the process of signing the agreement on the creation of the EAEU, the fifth anniversary of which was celebrated on May 29 in Nur-Sultan.
Currently, the EAEU is still facing growth problems, but is already firmly on its feet, which allows us to set further integration goals for the new five-year plan. In this regard, it is necessary to understand that the period 2020-2024 will be a time of change and a likely transition of power in the root countries of Eurasian integration - Kazakhstan, Belarus, Russia, despite the fact that the situation in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia can also hardly be called stable.
In addition, it seems that the growing power of China and the supposed integration of the EAEU with the Belt and Road project are of serious concern to the United States. It is possible that part of the North American elite close to Trump will try to offer Moscow cooperation on bilateral tracks in exchange for an anti-Chinese position and freezing the Eurasian project.
Thus, the upcoming five-year plan for the EAEU may become decisive, after which it will be clear in which direction the development of the countries of the integration five will go.
Integration in mass consciousness
The most important element in this regard is public opinion and perception of the ideas of Eurasian integration in the participating countries, for which it is possible to refer to the project’s research "Eurasian Monitor", which were held in the EAEU countries in 2012 – 2017.
It should be noted that sociology points to rather alarming trends indicating a decrease in public support for participation in the Union from the population. Thus, in the period 2015–2017, the largest decline was observed in Russia (from 78% to 68% of the population) and Armenia (from 56% to 46%). In the rest of the EAEU countries, public support for Eurasian integration decreased at a moderate pace: in Belarus from 60% to 56%, Kazakhstan from 80% to 76% and in Kyrgyzstan from 86% to 83%, respectively.
At the same time, the authors of the study also note that the peak values of support for Eurasian integration were noted in 2014, when indicators in all countries were on average about 10 percent higher.
The high level of support of that period was a kind of advance of public trust in the EAEU, which was explained by inflated expectations from integration and perhaps the strengthening of union thinking against the backdrop of the coup in Ukraine.
At the same time, the decrease in the level of public support for participation in the EAEU occurs not due to an increase in negative sentiment, but due to an increase in the number of respondents who are indifferent to the union or do not have a clear position.
The level of open negativity in all countries is quite low and, with the exception of Armenia (10-13%), is within 3-5 percent. The vast majority of citizens of the EAEU countries remain committed to the idea of union building, however, the number of skeptics has noticeably increased and competitors will undoubtedly work to transform these sentiments into outright denial and radicalism.
At the same time, the society of the EAEU countries demonstrates a high level of mutual trust, including in Russia (on average about 80%), which allows us to assert the stability of union thinking against the backdrop of intensified nationalist propaganda.
Thus, despite the presence of certain negative aspects, in general the EAEU stands on a stable foundation of popular trust, and if policy-making circles during the transit period manage to avoid management mistakes, nationalistic traps and the temptation to simulate integration instead of real processes of union building, then the Union has serious prospects ahead , including in terms of growth by new participants.
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