Duma chief praises Eurasian bloc as unique tool of global cooperation
The Eurasian Economic Union is a major new geopolitical organization contributing to the further integration of Western Europe and the dynamic economies of the Asia-Pacific region, according to a top Russian parliamentarian.
“Those who due to misunderstanding or inherent foolishness see the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) as a threat only confirm the fact that a new serious player has appeared in the world that would probably build the missing bridges,” State Duma Chairman Sergey Naryshkin said in a speech at an international conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The Russian politician called for the international community to stop seeing the EAEU as some fictional threat but instead see it as a unique chance for the peoples of Europe and Asia and the World as a whole.
He said that it was wrong to see European and Eurasian development as two opposing forces. “In historical perspectives one of them is a part of the other as Europe is a part of the Eurasian continent. From the very beginning our nations seek to harmonize the integration processes in the EU and the EAEU, and in future create a single European space without divisions from Lisbon to Vladivostok, as foreseen by French President Charles De Gaulle,” Naryshkin said.
The State Duma chief added that Eurasian integration was among the most positive aspects of modern global politics. In the face of the growing instability in international relations, and expansion of chaos zones, humanity must concentrate on building a new secure, stable and polycentric world order, where the centers of forces would be cooperating rather than opposing each other, he said.
But before this happens, Western nations continue to wage an aggressive anti-Russian policy in the form of sanctions, Naryshkin stated. He called the current sanctions policy a tool of political and economic pressure and blackmail adding that such steps were contradicting the WTO rules as well as international law in general. “I would like to add that the nations who claim that they have established the rule of law simply have no right to such behavior, it is uncivilized.”
At the same conference the State Duma chief said five countries had already chosen to join the Eurasian Economic Union and 40 more had decided to enter a free trade zone with the bloc. He also criticized countries like Ukraine in which the government had decided to associate with the European Union.
“Such geopolitical choice is a sovereign right of any state, of course. But when politicians make decisions they must base them on positions of all population strata and all regions of their countries. They must consider all ethnic and cultural particularities as well as the interests of neighboring nations,” Naryshkin told the conference members.
The Eurasian Economic Union is an economic and political bloc formed in 2014 and uniting Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Armenia. The treaty to form it will go into full effect on January 1, 2015. The overall population of the union is about 171 million people and its gross domestic product is expected to reach $3 trillion next year.
