Who Needs the EU, If There's the CIS?
// The price of the question
Each summit causes a new round of discussion about what the organization is good for and where it is going. I cannot help remembering in that connection that the creation of the CIS was a forced measure, meant to help the former Soviet republics come apart peacefully. There can be no doubt that it has successfully fulfilled its purpose at the first stage.
Then the question arose of what next. At the second stage, the Commonwealth's problems began. It was more than just the remaining tendency toward breakdown through inertia in our former common home as the former republics strived for independence. The long policy of improving the CIS proved unjustified. It cannot be said that nothing was done in that attempt. Let us recall the Customs Union, EurAsEc, and the single customs space. None of them gave the Commonwealth a second wind.
It happened that way because the CIS member states did not make mutual concessions as they tried to carry our those initiatives. But that was not the main thing. International practice shows that the success of any organization uniting different states depends on its leader, the strongest member with the greatest economic potential, which is able to throw more than the rest into the common pot.
Obviously, that can only be Russia in the Commonwealth. In the Yeltsin era, when Russia was weak, it would have been inappropriate to propose that it serve as the organization's engine and drive it along. Today, however, the situation has qualitatively changed. Today's' Russia cannot be called weak, and it has enough potential to contribute more than the others to the Commonwealth. All Moscow needs now is the political will.
I suggest that, at its current stage, the Commonwealth has two possible paths of further development ahead of it. The first is to leave things as they are and, as a result, remain a leaders' club, as it is today. And there will be no need to count on the Commonwealth to play the role of integrator. The second possible path, now that the CIS has fulfilled its role, is the creation of a principally new organization, membership in which would be genuinely beneficial to the former republics. What benefit could there be? Ensuring the free movement of people, goods, capital and services within it. More simply put, membership in a new CIS (whatever it may be called) should be more beneficial to the former republics than membership in the European Union.
Clearly, without concessions from Russia, such an association is impossible. I once tried to communicate that idea to Vladimir Putin at a meeting with him. I can add that the majority of the other republics feel the same way. In general, it is Russia's move. Today, all the prerequisites exist for taking a step forward, saying, “The CIS is dead, long live the CIS!”
Petr Luchinsky, former president of Moldova
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 22, 2008
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