In 2021, the presidency of the Eurasian Economic Union bodies passed from Belarus to Kazakhstan. Nur-Sultan priorities in the development of Eurasian integration in the message to colleagues President of the Republic of Kasim-Zhomart Tokayev. The list includes five questions: industrial cooperation, fair mutual trade, Eurasian transit routes, digitalization and dialogue with other integration associations. What tasks will put it before participants of the EAEU, and what difficulties can meet in the process of their decision, analyzed the director of the Public Association Center for Studying Foreign Policy and Security, Researcher of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Denis Bonkin.
From the beginning of 2021, Kazakhstan began his chairmanship of the EAEU. The period of the presidency of Belarus fell on a difficult period associated with the emergence and distribution of coronavirus pandemic in the world. It was this factor that did not allow to implement a very ambitious program offered by the Belarusian side.
At the moment, it is not clear to what extent a pandemic will be a restrictive factor for the chairmanship of Kazakhstan, which, nevertheless, is planning to conduct a number of events within his chairmanship, including offline mode. Under these conditions, it is necessary to understand in which directions of the integration agenda will be focused by Nur-Sultan, and what exactly will be given to central attention in the framework of the chairmanship in 2021. At the moment, the president is indicated by priorities that can be called "5 + 1".
Promocooperation
Firstly, Solomonovo solution is offered in the field of industrial cooperation, since a number of countries have been dissatisfied with an obvious imbalance in joint trade, where they have preferential articles occupied commodities, while other countries have tried to obtain comprehensive access to industrial goods markets. The most accurate in this regard is the balance between Belarus and Russia, the first of which seeks to access the state procurement market, while the second mainly supplies oil and gas to Belarus.Kazakhstan offers to go through the creation of joint ventures and infrastructure projects. It is the involvement of partnership countries in the creation of high-value-added chains may eliminate the desire to provide preferential preferences with their own national manufacturers.
And this is a fairly good way out if the question of already existing highly localized enterprises will be resolved, such as MAZ or BelAZ. When creating new enterprises, combining the potential of partner countries will certainly lead to synergies and an increase in non-religious exports.
It is not clear, however, how to deal with existing enterprises. Thus, the experience of creating a joint venture from Belaruscalia and Uralkali cannot be considered impeccable, and in this regard, the question of the supranational powers of the Eurasian Economic Court in matters of arbitration and involvement in the creation of joint ventures of the Eurasian Economic Commission, which could serve as a kind of vaccination from National Egoism in certain matters.
Baleless Wednesday and Logistics
Secondly, Kazakhstan will continue to fight barriers, seizures and restrictions that have become a real scourge of the integration project. A negative dynamics is recorded in the EAU for the year, which is due to the fact that despite the elimination of barriers or restrictions, there are even more obstacles to the intensification of mutual trade. Often the emergence of such obstacles associate with the introduction of import substitution programs and market saturation tasks with their own products at the national level. In this regard, the right of supranational association is often violated.
It may be necessary to think about the development of the concept of two categories of imports: from EAEU member countries and third countries, and in this regard, reflecting for the first category or tightening in the control of the second category. I would be ideal, of course, the refusal to approach the goods produced in the EAEU as imported, but it requires a completely different level of interaction and interpenetration of economies.
Thirdly, the idea of more active involvement of the cross-border and logistics potential of the EAEU appears. At the same time, the disclosure of such potential is directly linked to the conjugation of the Eurasian integration association with the initiative "one belt, one way".
It is clear that for Kazakhstan it is extremely important to reveal the potential of the "Horgos Knode" on the border with China, as well as the possibility of the International Center for Trade and Economic Cooperation "Central Asia" on the border of Kazakhstan with Uzbekistan. But the problem of conjugation of the EAEU and the initiative "one belt, one way" remains one of the fundamental problems for experts in integration construction on the continent. The fact is that EAEU as an association aims to maximize the development of the economies of the Union countries, including the creation of additional obstacles to countries that are not included in education, which provides an additional opportunity for the development of own manufacturers. "One belt, one way" has completely different goals, one of which is the trade expansion of Chinese goods to foreign markets.
Of course, the development of the conjugation of national distribution systems of Member States, including through the creation of Eurasian wholesale and logistics complexes, will increase the overall efficiency of EAEU transport corridors for economic entities of its participants. These same systems can, if necessary, be used by foreign partners for transshipment of their own products, but without the conclusion of a comprehensive transaction with China, following the agreement between the PRC and the EU, it is not necessary to talk about more dense cooperation.
Digitalization and external communication
As the fourth priority, it probably appears, the most relevant goal for EAEU countries, especially in a pandemic. The author has already written about the need for transformation and implementation of the Digital Agenda of the EAEU, while intensification on this path is not only the condition for the development of the economies of member countries, but also the issue of obtaining a competitive advantage in this difficult time. At the same time, the digitalization range should be an integrated EAEU information system, which should largely simplify the exchange of data. At the same time, it is necessary to understand a sufficiently different level of development of the IT industry in the countries of the Union and a different legislative base, including those associated with electronic document flow. It is equalization in the development of IT technologies and harmonization in the field of law will be a prerequisite for the step forward in digitalization already in 2021The fifth priority is voiced by the development of relations with third countries and integration associations. But here it is necessary to understand that the lack of serious progress in the EU-EAEEC, or the lack of dialogue with ASEAN is primarily connected with the fact that the Union cannot establish itself as a serious player who must also be considered when building relationships with countries incoming In the integration association. In the meantime, this is not the case, both of the integration formations, prefer to build relations with individual countries of the Union, bypassing Eurasian institutions. Without a strong and influential ECE, which would be endowed with great powers simultaneously with responsibility for decisions, it is unlikely to be possible.
RESULTS
As an additional point, it is possible to consider a statement on the need to address the selection of candidates for the personnel composition of the Commission based on the principles of meritocracy: taking into account professionalism and business qualities, without tight binding to the equity participation of states in ECE financing. This, of course, can be called an attempt by Kazakhstan to increase its influence, but at the same time it can lead to an obvious imbalance in integration structures that are damaged to the interests of a country.
This is due to the fact that it is still difficult to talk about the presence of Eurasian identity, in the presence of which the official can put the interests of the Union above national egoism. This requires work in the direction of the formation of this type of identity and time.
At the same time, in addition to the posts quoted by member countries, most of the grassroots and technical vacancies are occupied by citizens of the Russian Federation, and this does not mean that there are no experience in the participating countries to gain experience in EAEU. It is necessary, on the contrary, to say that the Competition for posts should be conducted including taking into account the observance of the participation of all member countries, with compulsory rotation on the country sign, to positively influence the formation of the very Eurasian identity.
In general, Kazakhstan's priorities look quite ambitious. It is a pity that there are no more ideas about the need to improve the efficiency and efficiency of the ECE by giving it great powers, including with the transfer of a part of national authority to the support level. This moment, subject to the existence of a clearly definite responsibility of ECE officials to the participating countries for the decisions, could solve a number of issues currently in the integration of problems.
Denis Bonkin, Researcher of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Director of Public Association "Center for External Policy and Security"