Russia: Eurasian Union

The idea of a Eurasian Union was first proposed by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an Izvestia op-ed, on October 5, 2011. It aims to integrate the member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) into a customs and economic union and ultimately to build a supra-national alliance of sovereign countries.

Russia's plan is to start with five CIS countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan), and then expand the Eurasian Union to include all former Soviet republics, and beyond that, to cover the Asia-Pacific region.

A central component of the Eurasian Union, the Eurasian Economic Union was launched in 2015. Free flow of products, services, capital and labor within the union is envisaged by 2025, and the final goal is to broaden the union into one similar to the European Union, with a unified market benefiting 170 million people.

The prospects for aligning the Eurasian Union framework with the Belt and Road Initiative appear promising. The latter will buttress Russia's efforts to shift the center of gravity of its economic development to Siberia and the Far East, to bridge the gap between its Asian and European parts, and to propel the process of building a fledgling Eurasian Union.

俄羅斯“歐亞聯盟”

2011年10月5日，時任俄羅斯總理普京在俄《消息報》發表署名文章，提出了“歐亞聯盟”的發展理念。“歐亞聯盟”旨在逐步融合獨聯體國家，打造統一的關稅聯盟和經濟空間 ；通過提升獨聯體地區一體化的程度與層次，最終建立起擁有超國家機構的主權國家聯盟。俄羅斯將以獨聯體國家為突破口，逐漸將“歐亞聯盟” 的范圍由現在的俄羅斯、白俄羅斯、哈薩克斯坦、亞美 尼亞、吉爾吉斯斯坦共5個前蘇聯加盟共和國擴大到整個前蘇聯“版圖”，最后輻射到亞太地區。歐亞經濟聯盟作為“歐亞聯盟”的關鍵環節，已于 2015年正式啟動，預計在2025年實現商品、服務、資金和勞動力的自由流動，最終將建成類似于歐盟的經濟聯盟，形成一個擁有1.7億人口的統一市場。“歐亞聯盟”與“一帶一路”的戰略對接前景廣闊。絲綢之路經濟帶對于推動俄羅斯將經濟發展的重心東移到西伯利亞和遠東地區，縮小其亞洲部分與歐洲部分的經濟差距，建成“歐亞聯盟”有著重要意義。