The Eurasian Economic Commission: From Its Origins to the Present

ISSN 1019-3316, Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2022, Vol. 92, Suppl. 9, pp. S838–S851. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2022. Russian Text © The Author(s), 2022, published in Vestnik RGGU, Ser.: Evraziiskie Issledovaniya. Istoriya. Politologiya. Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 2022, No. 2, pp. 12–45. Problems of Economics The Eurasian Economic Commission: From Its Origins to the Present E. I. Pivovar# Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia e-mail: Received July 14, 2022; revised August 26, 2022; accepted September 7, 2022 Abstract—This article is devoted to the background and history of the functioning of the Eurasian Economic Commission in the post-Soviet space. It examines the activities of its predecessor, the Customs Union Commission, which operated until November 2011, when, on the basis of the treaty “On the Eurasian Economic Commission,” its powers were transferred to the supranational body of the Eurasian Economic Community—the Eurasian Economic Commission. The Commission of the Customs Union was designed to facilitate the completion of the formation of the legal framework of the Customs Union of members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, including the Customs Code of the Customs Union. The main activities of the Eurasian Economic Commission from the moment of its creation to the present time are traced, and the main stages of the work of the Eurasian Economic Commission of all three convocations of its Boards are examined. The relationship of this supranational body of the Eurasian Economic Community and the Eurasian Economic Union with foreign partners is explored; and the conclusion of agreements on free trade zones with a number of states and regional associations, as well as achievements and challenges faced by integration processes in the Eurasian Economic Union space in the field of trade, customs procedures, technical regulations, industrial cooperation, digitalization of all spheres of activity, etc., is considered. Keywords: Eurasian integration, Eurasian Economic Commission, Eurasian Union, international economic cooperation, industrial cooperation, digital economy DOI: 10.1134/S1019331622150084 The activities of the modern Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the first supranational body of the former Soviet territory, which regulates the interaction of the five member states of the Eurasian Economic Union, were preceded by the work of the Customs Union Commission (CUC). It was a permanent body established by the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, and the Russian Federation in accordance with the agreement of October 6, 2007, on the conclusion of the Customs Union (CU) of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) of these three countries.1 The CUC was supposed to develop normative legal acts, and its decisions were signed by all of its members. The CUC consisted of a chairman and two members of the Commission: First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation I.I. Shuvalov and the members of the commission Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Belarus S.N. Rumas and First Deputy # RAS Academician Efim Iosifovich Pivovar, Dr. Sci. (Hist.), is President of the Russian State University for the Humanities. 1 Agreement On the Commission of the Customs Union, Electronic fund of legal and normative–technical documents. https://docs.cntd.ru/document/902200993. Cited January 11, 2021. Chairman of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan U.E. Shukeyev.2 The working body of the CUC was the Secretariat with an executive secretary at the head. The Secretariat organized the activities of the supreme body of the CU, the Interstate Council of the EurAsEC at the level of members of the governments of the three states. The structure of the CUC Secretariat included a number of departments: customs administration, customs and tariff regulation, trade policy, financial policy, statistics, measures in foreign trade, technical regulation, sanitary, veterinary, phytosanitary measures, legal, and administrative. The Scientific and Expert Council was also formed.3 In connection with the signing on November 18, 2011, of the agreement On the Eurasian Economic Commission, the powers of the abolished CUC were transferred to the supranational body of the EurAsEC, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC).4 2 Commission of the Customs Union, Dictionaries and Encyclope- dias on Academics. https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/ 1526372. Cited January 11, 2021. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. S838 THE EURASIAN ECONOMIC COMMISSION The CUC was intended primarily to contribute to the completion of the formation of the legal framework of the Customs Union. Already in the very agreement on the establishment of the Commission, signed in October 2007, was information about the creation of a single customs territory and the formation of the Customs Union. Over the years of CUC activity, several dozen international agreements have been signed in this area, including agreements on unified customs regulation, export customs duties in relation to third countries, common rules on the origin of goods, on maintaining customs statistics of foreign and mutual trade, on the conditions and mechanism for applying tariff quotas, on the provision of tariff privileges and a unified system of tariff preferences, on the procedure for paying customs duties in the member states of the Customs Union, on the rules for licensing in the field of foreign trade, on the CU agreement on veterinary and sanitary measures, etc.5 Of great importance was the Treaty on the Customs Code of the Customs Union of December 11, 2009, as well as the Agreement on the implementation of a coordinated policy in the field of technical regulation of sanitary and phytosanitary measures of the Eurasian Economic Community of January 25, 2008, and the Agreement on the establishment of an information system of the EurAsEC in the field of technical regulation and sanitary and phytosanitary measures of December 12, 2008.6 The Agreement on the Customs Code of the Customs Union was adopted by the Interstate Council of the EurAsEC at the level of heads of state on November 27, 2009. At the same time, as an annex to the agreement, the first version of the Customs Code itself was approved, which included the main provisions, the characteristics of customs payments and customs control, customs operations and procedures, etc.7 A new, amended version of this document was approved on April 16, 2010.8 Preparations for the establishment of the Customs Union were intensified in 2009. Before that, the atten5 List of international treaties constituting the legal framework of the Customs Union, Eurasian Economic Commission. http://www.tsouz.ru/DOCS/INTAGRMNTS/Pages/Perechen_ MDTS.aspx. Cited May 7, 2021. 6 Ibid. 7 Annex to the Treaty on the Customs Code of the Customs Union, adopted by the Decision of the Interstate Council of the Eurasian Economic Community (the supreme body of the customs union) at the le (...truncated)