PUTIN REVEALS PLAN FOR ‘NEW SOVIET UNION’
by Tony Halpin
The Times
Oct 4 2011
UK
Vladimir Putin revealed his grand vision today of creating a new
superpower out of the countries of the former Soviet Union when he
returns to the Kremlin.
The Russian Prime Minister said that he wanted to form a “Eurasian
Union” in his first major announcement since declaring that he would
resume the presidency of Russia next year for up to 12 more years. The
body, which would inevitably be dominated by Moscow, would gather
the former Soviet republics into a “full-fledged economic union”
capable of rivalling the European Union and China.
He presented the goal as a way to lift the region out of the global
economic crisis, but it will stir alarm in the West that Mr Putin aims
to snuff out the independence of neighbouring states and rebuild the
Soviet Union. He once described the Soviet collapse in 1991 as the
“greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”.
Mr Putin set out his “new integration project” in an article in
Izvestia, calling it “the future that is being born today”. It would
build upon a Customs Union established by Russia and the former
Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Belarus that will turn into a
single market in trade, capital and labour in January.
“We are not going to stop there and are setting ourselves an ambitious
goal: to move to the next, even higher level of integration – to a
Eurasian Union,” wrote Mr Putin. The customs union already planned
to expand to the Central Asian republics of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Mr Putin insisted that the project was not “about recreating the
USSR”. He went on: “It would be naive to try to reconstruct or copy
something that is already in the past, but close integration based
on new political and economic values is the imperative of our time.
“We are proposing a model of a powerful supranational association
that is capable of becoming one of the poles of the modern world and,
within that, to play an effective linking role between Europe and
the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.
“This means that there is a need to switch to closer coordination in
economic and currency policies and to create a full-fledged economic
union.”
Mr Putin formed the customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan from
his current position as Prime Minister. He has put intense pressure
on Ukraine to join, but President Yanukovych is resisting on the
grounds that it would harm the republic’s goal of EU membership.
Mr Putin insisted that this was a false choice, arguing that the
Eurasian Union would grow to become a partner for the EU under the
“unified values of freedom, democracy and market rules”.
“Membership in the Eurasian Union, apart from direct economic benefits,
will enable its members to integrate into Europe faster and from a
much stronger position,” Mr Putin said.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have suffered civil unrest and economic
hardship since the Soviet collapse and have sought financial aid
from the Kremlin. Armenia is also highly dependent on Moscow after
selling key elements of its economy to Russian companies and would
find it hard to resist a call to join the new union.
Moscow may pressure oil-rich Azerbaijan through its unresolved conflict
with Armenia over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, both rich in minerals and energy reserves,
are also likely to face attempts to pull them into the Eurasian Union
and away from China.
Only Georgia, under the pro-West President Saakashvili, is likely
to reject any offer outright, having fought a war with Russia in
2008 over its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The
Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which regained
their independence during the Soviet collapse, are now EU members.
Mr Putin intends to replace Dmitri Medvedev as President in
elections next March that are already a foregone conclusion. With
two presidential terms that would allow him to rule until 2024,
he will have plenty of time to bring his project to fruition.
He wrote that the global economic crisis had exposed “imbalances”
that required greater regional integration through bodies such as
the EU, the North America Free Trade Agreement and the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation.
“From such building blocks can be formed a more stable world economy,”
he said. “I am convinced that the creation of the Eurasian Union…is
the way to allow its members to occupy a worthy place in the complex
world of the 21st Century. Only together can our countries enter the
ranks of leaders in global development and civilisational progress,
to attain success and prosperity.”