WHY THE EURASIAN UNION MIGHT NOT SURVIVE 2015 Russia’s economy spirals into crisis, the prognosis for 2015 is dire. More and more, the peripheral economies realize that they are bound to a drowning Russia. In short, with the addition of Armenia and Kyrgyzstan to the union, Russia won the photo opportunity it wanted. But the breakneck expansion undermined the union’s integrity, and what was once a shared effort among three countries has become a vanity project for Moscow. The Eurasian Economic Union is dead in all but name. It will survive as another hollow post-Soviet multilateral institution celebrated with presidential summits but producing no progress toward its stated goals. And the flip side: But the bad news is also that sanctions are working. A genuine economic and fiscal crisis starting in Russia and spreading across the former Soviet Union will amplify existing nationalism, separatism, and military adventurism, not only in Russia and on its borders but across the whole post-Soviet periphery. Once that process gains momentum, neither the West nor China will be willing or able to stop it. There is an urgent need to prepare for a post-Soviet financial and economic crisis in 2015. Western policy needs to think past punishment for Ukraine and anticipate the consequences of the crash of the Eurasian economy.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 12:45:16 +0000
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