The latest summit of CIS leaders in Minsk can safely be called a summit of unfulfilled hopes. Many participants thought they would manage to resolve at least some problems at this meeting, which, incidentally, had been postponed for a long while. This was the evaluation of the summit by President Viktor Yushchenko. He said that Ukraine had had high hopes for its potential, but not all of them came true because every constructive viewpoint was not taken into account.
Ukraine had suggested adopting a memorandum at the summit about mutual understanding between CIS members concerning the creation of a fully functional free-trade zone and about a mechanism for special protective measures in mutual trade. The Ukrainian delegation also proposed adopting a joint resolution about the delimitation of borders between CIS members. “A decision regarding these proposals has not been made because of lack of consensus,” said CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo after a private meeting of CIS leaders. President Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, the incumbent CIS head, believes that resolving this issue is a “complicated process.” He explained that out of 92 decisions needed for a functional free-trade zone, only 32 were adopted.
At first the summit of the leaders of 11 former Soviet republics (the president of Turkmenistan was absent) was viewed as the basis for reforming and modernizing the Commonwealth, which has been in existence for 15 years. Moscow counted on “adapting the CIS to today’s reality.” The main topic of the summit was a discussion of a report on increasing the efficiency of the CIS. A draft program for reforming the CIS suggested by President Nazarbaev was also scheduled for consideration.
In practice, the participants only exchanged views. “On the basis of the report by the highest-level group on increasing the efficiency of the CIS, a thorough exchange of views on improving and reforming the CIS and on the prospects for its development took place.” This is how the CIS Executive Secretary summarized the summit’s outcome. He acknowledged that the CIS has found itself at a stage that is complex and too responsible. Interfax quotes him as saying, “The forecasted scenarios of its further development are contradictory and even diametrically opposed, but we do not subscribe to these pessimistic views.”
The Georgian delegation had high hopes for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, but it did not materialize. The meeting of CIS leaders was eclipsed by an action by journalists from the Kremlin pool. They left the summit in an organized fashion in protest against the actions of the Belarusian delegation that did not allow a reporter and a photographer from Moskovskii Komsomolets and photographers from Kommersant to work.
The CIS leaders signed a declaration about combating illegal migration, an agreement about the head of the CIS antiterrorist center, and a resolution to hold the next CIS summit in St. Petersburg around June 10, 2007. “The discussion resulted in the following decision: on the basis of a report by the highest-level group, the Council of Ministers of the CIS shall by June 1, 2007, develop and submit for consideration to the heads of state a conceptual framework for reforming the Commonwealth,” said Nazarbaev, summarizing the summit of CIS leaders in Minsk. As if anticipating surprised questions from journalists about such insignificant results, Nazarbaev concluded the final press conference with the words, “The CIS is not hindering anyone.”
Despite the contradictory views on the current state of the CIS and its prospects, the leaders of the member-countries are trying to use the Minsk summit to resolve problems in relations with their CIS neighbors.
This position seems to be shared by the Ukrainian delegation. A confirmation is found in a statement by Yushchenko, who said that Ukraine continues to view the CIS as a tool in multilateral diplomacy, especially in the economic sphere. The Ukrainian president used the summit to hold bilateral meetings. So far there are no comments from the Ukrainian delegation on how it sees the reformed CIS.
In Georgia they question the idea that reforms may boost its efficiency. “Russia’s position on the prospects of the CIS is so different from that of the other Commonwealth members that the reorganized union is unlikely to be effective,” said Valerii Chechelashvili, Georgia’s First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile, in Minsk they believe that there is no alternative to the CIS as a political basis for cooperation among its constituent countries. “All the talk about the CIS having terminated its existence and about it being more dead than alive has no political or legal basis,” declared Sergei Martynov, the Belarusian foreign minister.
COMMENTS
Serhii NIKOLIUK, deputy head of the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (NISD):
“I believe that the CIS members will continue their cooperation for a long time in the same smoldering mode in which the CIS is developing now — because they have nowhere else to go. Ukraine and Georgia are making some attempts. But as for the others, where can they go? They simply have nowhere to go, like people living in a shared apartment. Everyone would like to have a separate apartment, but it’s impossible. That’s why the CIS will remain as it is, ebbing and flowing. As far as the Kazakh president’s initiatives to reform the CIS are concerned, one needs to remember the Novo-Ogarevo treaties that were never implemented in Gorbachev’s time, when Nazarbaev was a key player. He is said to have been a candidate for prime minister of the USSR. Since then he has been constantly developing initiatives and will continue to do so. Nazarbaev is the president of an Asian country with fairly extensive resources. Therefore, he wants to play a prominent part by relying on domestic resources. But here in the CIS no one is waiting for Nazarbaev to become somebody; here everyone is a leader in his own right. The creation of a free-trade zone within the CIS runs up against the interests of member countries. Common rules can be formally adopted for the CIS, but no one will abide by them because the Belarusian and Russian economies are being built not so much on official rules as on unofficial ones.
Yevhen SHAROV, head of the Integration and Strategic Partnership Department, NISD:
“The CIS has, in fact, occupied its niche. This Commonwealth can be compared with the Windows operating system. As it came into being after the breakup of the USSR, so it exists now. It formed spontaneously, and at this level it functions as an operating system for various forms of cooperation, satisfactory for every country involved, even Georgia. Within this system there are a number of other programs, each with its own significance, direction, and depth-the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Single Economic Space and, to some extent, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). At present the CIS has found itself in a situation in which it does not have any fundamental prospects as a separate program, functioning, in essence, like an umbrella.
“The Commonwealth is a kind of backup system that allows for minimization of foreign-policy failures in the West, i.e., when inclusion in a different operating system, or an umbrella, fails. When regional or global foreign-policy initiatives of a country fall through because of objective reasons, or an international policy vector of this or that ruling group fails to realize, or the leader of a country falls out of favor in the West-everyone eventually comes back to the CIS. In other words, it is an operating system that is understandable and comfortable for everyone and which covers the population and economic area where the leaders of half of Eurasia get together for informal meetings. Despite political independence and dissimilar national interests, the question of energy and interdependence pushes them toward each other. On the other hand, no one seriously attempts to leave the CIS when their proposals are not accepted. An uncompromising attitude or the formula “my way or the highway” do not work in the CIS. In spite of everything the organization still exists.
“At the same time, some initiatives are possible and it is conceivable that the CIS will continue its existence as a general format uniting all these projects and programs. It seems to me that the CIS structure will be reformed. The question of having national coordinators in the CIS was raised on numerous occasions. But the reforms will likely pertain to the organization’s governing structure. I believe that for Ukraine’s initiatives to be accepted, corresponding legislation (on taxes, tariffs, etc.) needs to be synchronized. The issue of market access is a political one. World experience shows that the deepest penetration into national markets is achieved only by military and political allies. International trade does not tolerate romantics.
“As far as Russia’s willingness to open its markets, and in particular to create a free-trade zone with Ukraine, is concerned, there must be a sufficiently high level of political cooperation and trust between the Russian Federation and Ukraine and other CIS countries. At present I don’t see the political will on the part of CIS leaders to create this kind of foundation for cooperation that would fully facilitate the creation of such a cooperation zone. In a way, both Russia and Kazakhstan are competitors on the energy market. Ukraine enters the competition in the military-industrial complex and agricultural sector. One also needs to consider that access to markets becomes an extremely politicized problem when a country strives to integrate along different vectors. As far as the whole CIS is concerned, i.e., at the global level, I don’t see a united consensus desire of all member countries to create on the post- Soviet territory some unified economic, transportation, and customs rules that would resemble those of the EU. No less significant is the fact that both Ukraine and Russia are on the verge of joining the WTO, which will impose certain restraints on regional trade and economic cooperation within the CIS. Furthermore, until these key processes have taken place, I don’t think there will be any significant changes inside the CIS.”
