The Russian EU mission in Brussels recently informed diplomats and journalists in the EU capital about Vladimir Putin´s major foreign policy initiative, the Eurasian Economic Union:
The Union aims to create an EU-like suprantional group in the Caucasus. Currently, the group is effectively a customs union but by 2015, the goal is to create a regional free-trade zone with a Eurasian Economic Commission to oversee joint policies, and an independent court to judge rules breaches. Unified monetary, tax and macroeconomic policies are eventually supposed to follow.
In February, the three current members–Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus–agreed to set up the Commission. Where better to trumpet the success than down the road (literally) from its apparent role model, the European Commission, the EU executive.
There is every reason to hope for success for the Eurasian Economic Union. As its European role model is slowly but certainly collapsing, most more or less useless EU Commissioners could actually be re-located to Putin´s Eurasian Economic Commission. The former Portuguese maoist José Manuel Barroso would e.g. be an ideal candidate for the job as President of this new EEC. His experience as one of the driving forces of the EUSSR would be an invaluable asset when Putin tries to build his new empire.
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