Microsoft Word mjss v5N23 part IV november 2014

Keywords: The Eurasian Economic Community, the Eurasian Economic Union, regionalism, Russia, Ukraine 
 
 
1. Introduction 
It is apparent that today post-Soviet region has been facing some domestic problems as ethnic conflicts, regime 
instabilities separatism and some international problems as foreign rivalry, neo-imperial policies, security problems, 
international terrorism, border disputes, human and drug trafficking, water and energy tensions. Molchanov (2012) states 
that Eurasian regionalism can be defined as complementary and sometimes contradictory processes of the economic, 
social, political and normative reintegration of several post-communist states that span the Eurasian continent. 
Regionalism in Eurasia emerged in the early 1990s with the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States. 
The Commonwealth of Independent States has been treated as an instrument of Russian neo-imperial policies. Eurasian 
regionalism has been regarded mostly as Russian-centered. The Eurasian Economic Community was established with a 
treaty signed on 10 October 2000. The main aims of the community have been to complete the establishment of a free 
trade regime, to recognize a unified customs tariff, and a to establish a unified system of non-tariff regulation measures 
(EurAsEC, 2011).
It is obvious that Eurasia has been Russia-centered since the eigtheenth century, when the Empire stretched from 
the Baltics to Afghanistan. In 1943, Halford Mackinder suggested that Russian territory was the heartland of Eurasia. The 
Eurasian region is abundant in natural resources and also has embraced diverse ethnicities and religions (Tsygankov, 
2012, 2).
Regionalism can be developed with the establishment of major organizational forms. The early years of the twenty-
first century have witnessed intensification in regionalism across the globe. International organizations have been 
instrumental in promoting regionalism.
Regionalism is an important phenomenon in the contemporary global economic system. Contemporary regionalism 
can be manifested in different forms in different regions. Eurasian regionalism differs from other forms of regionalism. The 
Ukrainian crisis can be considered a rivalry between European and Eurasian regionalism. Ukraine and the European 
Union had agreed on a deep and comprehensive free trade area in late 2011. The European Commission had 
announced on 15 May 2013 that the EU-Ukraine Association agreement might be signed at the Eastern Partnership 
Summit, to be held in November 2013 (Muradov, 2013). The Ukrainian government did not sign the association 
agreement with the European Union.
The Russian Federation does not consider Ukraine to be a state. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on 4 
April 2008 that most of Ukraine’s territory had been a gift from Russia in the 1950s. Moreover, he added that Western 
Ukraine was part of Eastern Europe, and Eastern Europe belonged to Russia (Blank, 2011, 75-76). 

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ISSN 2039-2117 (online) 
ISSN 2039-9340 (print) 
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 

MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy 
Vol 5 No 23 
November 2014 

 
1987
 
The members of the Eurasian Economic Community, Belarus and Kazakhstan, do not support the policy of the 
Russian Federation on backing separatist movements, such as in the 2008 South Ossetia War (Shelest, 2014, p.3). 
It is worth noting that although Putin regretted to accept any purpose to reintegrate Soviet successor states, 
according to a poll conducted by VtSIOM, after the annexation of Crimea, 82 percent of Russian respondents stated that 
they had begun to see Russia as a super power similar to the former Soviet Union (Felgenhauer, 2014).