CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VI (1) Contemporary-Eurasia-VI-1-engl | страница 24

ARMEN MANVELYAN
The newly created the Eurasian Economic Union can change the
geopolitical landscape on the Eurasian continent. The Russian
Federation - as the founder and the biggest country of EAEU - has a
most significant potential in this Union, an important part of which is
the energy resources which Russia utilizes to reinforce its position and
to make this Union more attractive especially for the former Soviet
republics.
Russia's initiative of creating a new economic union with the
former Soviet republics – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and
Kyrgyzstan – is a new possibility for these republics to recover former
ties with each other and Russia, and to restore cooperation within the
old and familiar markets. The idea of a union appeared attractive to
these countries, largely due to familiarity, the experience of a common
market along with its standards and demands 9 . This economic union is
envisioned as a single market that provides for free movement of
people, goods, services, and capital.
The energy factor was at the core of this initiative: all the
mentioned states needed a closer cooperation especially in the energy
sector; and according to the EAEU treaty, it might be the main
locomotive to move this process on and bring the former republics
together at the same place 10 . This energy attractiveness could play a
key role in the creation and reinforcement of this economic union in
the future.
The EAEU is one of the most resource-rich organizations in the
world; it possesses an estimated 1/5 of the world's gas and about 8%
of the world's oil resources. The EAEU produces about 5% of the
world electricity, and its energy sector makes up to about 1/6 of its
GDP and 1/3 of overall industrial production 11 .
Members of the EAEU have different energy powers but have
close, and high, energy interests, which unite them politically and
economically. They all want to create a single energy space that would
9
Eurasian Economic Integration: Facts and Figures, Moscow, 2015,
http://www.eurasiancommission.org/en/Documents/broshura26_ENGL_2014.pdf
10
Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union, Eurasian Economic Commission,
2015, http://www.un.org /en/ga/sixth/70/docs/treaty_on_eeu.pdf
11
Prospects of Energy Cooperation, Eurasian Economic Commission, 2015,
http://www.eurasiancommission.org/ru/Documents/_eec_energy_all_150623.pdf
24