A treaty to
launch the Eurasian Economic Union spanning Russia, Kazahkstan and Belarus has
been signed by the countries' presidents in the Kazahk capital. The bloc will
come into being next January.
Deutsche Welle, 29 May 2014
Three
ex-Soviet republics took the first step on Thursday to creating a trading bloc
with a combined population of 170 million after years of tense negotiations. It
still depends on approvals from the republics' parliaments.
Ukraine
opted not to join the proposed bloc in February after an unprecedented
to-and-fro wrangle with Russia over an alternative plan - aborted during unrest
- to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union.
At
Thursday's signing in Astana, Kazakhstan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said
the Eurasia bloc would enable the trio to strengthen their positions in global
markets - alongside the EU, US and China.
The
Eurasian deal stops short of introducing a single currency and delays the
creation of a common energy market.
The treaty
deepens a customs union created in 2010 and is supposed to guarantee the free
transit of goods, services, capital and labor, as well as coordinated economic
policy.
A
compromise, says Lukashenko
Belarus'
authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko said before the signing that he
was not fully happy with the deal, but hailed it as a compromise.
The
agreement was "well-balanced," said President Nursultan Nazabayev of
Kazakhstan whose energy riches leave Russia with little leverage.
The union
should become a "powerful incentive for modernizing our economies,"
said Nazabayev, adding that he saw it as a "bridge between the East and
the West."
Armenia and
Kyrgyzstan have said that they want to join the union later.
The
Eurasian Economic Union will base its executive body in Moscow, a high court in
Belarus and a top financial regulator in Kazakhstan.
The office
of Ukraine's newly elected president, Petro Poroshenko, said on Wednesday that
he wanted to sign a landmark treaty with the EU soon after his inauguration as
head of state.
Last
November, Ukraine's then Moscow-backed president Viktor Yanukovych turned his
back on an accord with the EU. His decision triggered protests, especially in
Kyiv, that led to his ouster in February.
Putin began
the drive to create the Eurasian union after asserting in 2005 that the
break-up of the Soviet Union had been the "biggest geopolitical
disaster" of the 20th century.
ipj/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)
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