CIS Heads of Government to Discuss Ukraine?

The agenda of the CIS Heads of Government Summit that will take place on 21 November 2014 features a wide range of economic, military-technical and humanitarian issues and the creation of the CIS Free Trade Zone. The Ukrainian crisis is not on the agenda, but it may be discussed on the fringes. How will the meeting proceed? What are the main items on the agenda? Here to comment is Oleg Alexandrov, Associate Professor at the MGIMO Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia and Yulia Yakusheva, Vice Director general, Head of Analytical department at the Moscow State University.

The agenda of the CIS Heads of Government Summit that will take place on 21 November 2014 features a wide range of economic, military-technical and humanitarian issues and the creation of the CIS Free Trade Zone. The Ukrainian crisis is not on the agenda, but it may be discussed on the fringes. How will the meeting proceed? What are the main items on the agenda? Here to comment is Oleg Alexandrov, Associate Professor at the MGIMO Department of International Relations and Foreign Policy of Russia and Yulia Yakusheva, Vice Director general, Head of Analytical department at the Moscow State University.

What are the priorities of the upcoming meeting of the CIS Heads of Government?

Oleg Alexandrov: In my opinion, the top issue will be economic interaction in the broadest sense of the word, including the creation of a CIS Free Trade Zone. Energy supply, transit, the prices of oil and petroleum products will be discussed. The prime ministers will also discuss military-technical cooperation and humanitarian issues. You have to bear in mind that such high-level meetings are usually called upon to make fundamental decisions or cancel former agreements.

Oleg Alexandrov

Will the economic issues be connected with the Customs Union?

Oleg Alexandrov: That is quite likely because the Customs Union includes all the other post-Soviet republics as observers. They follow this process and are engaged in negotiations. It is hard to say exactly what issues will be discussed at the summit and whether it will deliver a breakthrough, but the question will certainly be touched upon. The process of the enlargement of Customs Union membership is gathering momentum.

Will the Ukrainian crisis and ways of its settlement be discussed?

Oleg Alexandrov: Ukraine is not on the official agenda, but it is likely to be discussed on the fringes of the Summit. One of Russia’s main aims is to work out a common position of the CIS with regard to the Ukrainian crisis. If the parties manage to work out a common approach in the talks on the margins perhaps this will find its way into the Summit’s final documents. At any rate, Russia and Belarus have agreed their tentative positions on the Ukrainian crisis.

What are the priorities of the upcoming meeting of the CIS Heads of Government?

Yulia Yakusheva

Yulia Yakusheva: Traditionally, the Council of the CIS Heads of Government is concerned with multilateral cooperation mainly in the economic, social and humanitarian spheres. Unlike the Council of the Heads of State, this body does not make fundamental decisions on the development of the CIS. But it does coordinate the activities of the executive branch in implementing the decisions of the Council of CIS Heads of State, approving regulatory legal documents, passing decisions on current issues of economic cooperation among the Commonwealth countries. The agenda of the forthcoming meeting has been designed proceeding from these principles.

The top priority is the analysis of the performance of the CIS Free Trade Zone. Another pressing issue in the light of the situation on the world energy market and the fall of oil prices is competition and pricing in the oil industry.

Two issues on the agenda have to do with cooperation in the field of nuclear energy. The implementation of the Inter-State Targeted programme “Reclamation of the territories of the EurAsEC member states affected by uranium mining and milling facilities.” This programme targets Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and was initially designed and approved within the EurAsEC. However, because the Eurasian Economic Community disbanded in October of this year, the issue was handed over to the CIS Executive Committee, which attests that the system of communication and the mechanism of continuity between integration associations in the post-Soviet space is functioning smoothly.

The second nuclear-related issue is the approval of the Concept of Nuclear and Radiation Security of the CIS States in the field of peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

Among the humanitarian issues on the Council agenda are the plan of priority measures in the sphere of humanitarian cooperation among CIS states for 2015–2016. The plan of activities to promote cooperation between CIS states in the field of tourism until 2020 will be a logical conclusion of the CIS Year of Tourism.

All told, the Council is to discuss about 20 draft documents. So, the need to reform the CIS is long overdue, as was rightly pointed out by the CIS presidents at their latest summit in Minsk. However, the CIS bodies have clearly no shortage of substantive issues to discuss.

What economic tasks will be set and will they be connected with the implementation of the Customs Union?

Yulia Yakusheva: As I have already said, the focus will be on reviewing the early results of the implementation of the Treaty on the Free Trade Zone signed in 2011. The Treaty has come into force for Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. Tajikistan has yet to complete the ratification procedure. The fundamental significance of the Free Trade Zone is that this format of economic integration unites nine states, including Uzbekistan, which limits its participation in any integration projects. The Eurasian Economic Union created on the basis of the Customs Union has only four members so far. That is why the Free Trade Zone is the best mutually beneficial basis for cooperation with those states that are not planning to join the Customs Union or the EEU any time soon. At the same time, being a lower stage of economic integration compared to the Customs Union, fulfilling the obligations connected with free trade will enable the countries to introduce the Customs Union requirement sooner if a state decides to join the Eurasian project.

Is the Ukrainian crisis, and ways to resolve it, going to be discussed?

Yulia Yakusheva: The Council of the Heads of Government is not authorized to take political decisions, so the problem of settlement of the Ukrainian crisis may not be a separate item on the meeting’s agenda. Meanwhile, Kiev has signed the CIS Free Trade Zone Treaty and the document has come into force for Ukraine. So the issue of how one squares membership of the CIS Free Trade Zone and the Free Trade Zone with the European Union is likely to come up in one way or another. A consolidated opinion of the CIS countries on the issue would amount to a breakthrough. However, such a decision can only be made by the Council of the Commonwealth Heads of State. It is common knowledge that even the “Eurasian troika” has failed to come up with a common approach to the problem.

Interviewed by Maria Gurova, RIAC program assistant