Commonwealth of independent statesIT’S TOO EARLY TO PUT AN END TO THIS STRUCTURE Latterly, a variety of opinions have been circulating in the post-Soviet space concerning the fate and development prospects of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Some experts are prone to think that this form of integration has already become obsolete and therefore fails to meet demands of the times. An implication is that its efficiency comes to nought. In witness of this statement, they furnish a number of agreements, treaties and joint programs, which were signed but not realized by the CIS member-states. Besides they add that there are a lot of structures within the CIS framework, whose aims and tasks are similar or alternative, the most notable of these are EuroAsES, CAEC, GUAM etc. Indeed, over the past 15 years, approximately 1,500 different documents were approved by the CIS member-states. They constitute the regulatory and legal framework for bilateral and multilateral relationships between them. No less than two-thirds of the4se documents were signed in the first few years since the organization’s inception. This is quite understandable, since after the demise of the USSR, the former Soviet republics sought to regulate, as soon as possible, the most acute problems associated with the division of property, debt and assets. It needs to note that some problems were so complicated that tensions emerged here and there between the former the former fraternal republics. And it is mainly owing to the creation of the CIS that they could avoid the Balkan scenario. One can say with confidence that the centerpiece of its foundation was to ensure a civilized and peaceful divorce of the once united Soviet family. Some documents lost all their significance in the course of historic development. For instance, a number of agreements on the CIS united army and the sources of its financing, or on the purchase of grain and cotton under intergovernmental contracts at non-market prices have fallen into oblivion. Another share of documents, bearing directly on the division of the USSR’s property, were of short-term character. One should mention the formation of military and political structures within the framework of the Commonwealth. One of them is the Agreement on Collective Security, signed in May 1992. When the Republic of Uzbekistan left the Agreement in 1998, the word “Tashkent” was no longer used in its title. There were doubts about the expediency of (?) formation, because among its members were Armenia and Azerbaijan, which succeeded in terminating a long-lasting conflict between themselves only by 1994. Tashkent didn’t see in this structure any real force or capacity to stop the movement of the Talibes to the north of Afghanistan in order to minimize the threat of crossing the Amudarya River. Of course, this didn’t add confidence in the CIS as a strong and viable organization in the geo-politics of the day. Meanwhile, other experts do not view the ongoing processes as the signs testifying to a forthcoming disintegration of the CIS. Rather, they think that what we are witnessing today is a natural transformation of economic and political processes, which, in turn, entail a certain decline in the former fraternal republics’ mutual interest for each other. After independence the majority of them have re-oriented their foreign economic activity towards “far abroad”. But having met with a rebuff in the international marketplace in the form of customs barriers, stiff competition, protectionism and suchlike, many of the CIS member-states start turning their eyes on conventional markets. Another interesting fact worth noting is that a decade ago, the Commonwealth accounted for Ѕ of Uzbekistan’s total foreign economic cooperation. Its subsequent drop resulted from a number of factors, including an increase in customs and transit tariffs, slump/rise in world prices for exported and imported goods and services, and tough competition in the CIS domestic markets. One can suggest that since the beginning of the 21st century, centrifugal forces are becoming stronger day after day. This is conditional on a variety of economic and political factors. In many CIS member-states, the euphoria from the prospect of smooth penetration into the world market has vanished into the thin air as soon as they encountered stiff competition and rigid rules there. It soon became clear that neither goods and services nor workforce from the former USSR were generally sought after in the international markets. Moreover, certain barriers were mounted there against the former Soviet republics. Exclusion was made only for raw stuff, which they have in abundance. But such a one-sided approach no longer suits Uzbekistan. It is quite clear that trade in raw materials cannot ensure the nation’s sustained economic growth and prosperity. That is why all countries of the Commonwealth are now trying their utmost to develop and diversify cooperation within its framework on terms of mutual benefit. It doesn’t mean that all is well on this front. Problems and contradictions do arise from time to time between the states, but all of them are resolved with the help of legal and political means, on the basis of common sense and international cooperation practices. In the political sense, the CIS member-states unite with a view to jointly counteracting the outside destructive forces, such as terrorism, Islamic radicalism and organized crime (drugs-trafficking, illegal circulation of narcotics, slave-trade, circulation of goods and weapons etc.). Anyway, the Commonwealth has the real potential to appear on the world political stage as a consolidated force and to championing its interests in many international organizations, including the UN and the OSCE. As for organizations set up by the countries located in the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea Basins, they remain amorphous structures. With their emphasis put on transportation issues, which have been successfully addressed with the introduction of the TRASECA Corridor (Central Asia – Iran – Turkey – Europe), these organizations failed to assume importance and any precise shape. However, there are chances to restore these economic structures. All will depend on Europe’s strategies, investments and provision of favorable conditions to their members. Notwithstanding all the pathos of statements made by the leaders of Belarus and Russia, no real progress has been made so far in the formation of a union between the countries, whose foundations were laid down as far back as 1997. Meanwhile, calls to establish new economic unions are heard today across the CIS. For example, the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has recently come up with an initiative to create a new amalgamation in Central Asia. Frankly speaking, this has puzzled the states contiguous with the Republic of Kazakhstan, as the likes of OCAS, CIS, SOC and EuroAsEC already operate in the region. CIS member-states as members of various economic organizations
© Copyright: Алишер Таксанов, 2009.
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