Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 8,420
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Return of the USSR? Russia Sets Up EU Equivalent
Russia is creating a union in an attempt to stop countries like Ukraine from joining the EU and trying to convince former USSR Republics to join. Sadly it has been overlooked by most of the media.
Quote:
If realized, the Eurasian Economic Union will initially comprise three states which were part of the former Soviet Union: Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan plan to join before the end of 2015, while Uzbekistan and Tajikistan hope to join in the near future as well.
Vladimir Putin stated in November 2011 that the Eurasian Union would build upon the "best values of the Soviet Union"; however, critics claimed that the drive towards integration aims to restore the "Soviet Empire".
According to The Guardian newspaper, Putin's plan is for the Eurasian Customs Union to grow into a "powerful, supra-national union" of sovereign states like the European Union, uniting economies, legal systems, customs services, and military capabilities to form a bridge between Europe and Asia and rival the EU, the US, China, and India by 2015. Russia is the biggest foreign investor in the Eurasian economy, with a total of $3 billion (€2.27 billion) investments last year in a country whose GDP amounted to $9.9 billion (€7.5 billion) in 2012, according to the World Bank.
Ukraine submitted an application to participate in the Eurasian Union as an observer in August 2013. Its membership was seen by some analysts as the key to the success of the union. Russian pressure for Ukraine to join the EaEU instead of the European Union was a key factor in the Euromaidan protests that ended Viktor Yanukovych's rule as president of Ukraine and led to the Crimean Crisis. With high tensions between Russia and Ukraine in the wake of the crisis, the future inclusion of Ukraine seems unlikely. Ukraine has the second largest economy of any of the 15 former republics of the Soviet Union.
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