New Zealand has expressed an interest in creating a free trade zone with the Eurasian
Union, but this is, of course, nowhere near becoming a full member. (Cf. Letter of
Dmitry Shtodin, Minister Counsellor at the Russian Embassy in Rome, published as an
appendix to Mauro De Bonis, “Urss? No grazie, Putin sogna l’Unione Euroasiatica,”
7.
Dugin quoted by Marlène Laruelle,
8.
Dugin,
9.
Cf. “Evraziyskie komissary poluchat status federalnykh ministrov,”
10.
“Vstrecha prezidentov Rossii, Respubliki Belarus i Kazakhstana,”
11.
“Vstrecha prezidentov Rossii, Respubliki Belarus i Kazakhstana.”
12.
“Vstrecha prezidentov Rossii, Respubliki Belarus i Kazakhstana.”
13.
Marlène Laruelle, “When the ‘Near Abroad’ Looks at Russia: The Eurasian Union Project
as Seen from the Southern Republics,”
14.
“Evraziyskiy tamozhennyy soyuz i ego vliyanie na Tsentralnuyu Aziyu,”
15.
“Evraziyskiy tamozhennyy soyuz i ego vliyanie na Tsentralnuyu Aziyu.”
16.
“Evraziyskiy tamozhennyy soyuz i ego vliyanie na Tsentralnuyu Aziyu.” Putin, in his
speech, said: “The combined GDP measured in purchasing power parity of countries such
as India and China is already greater than that of the United States. And a similar
calculation with the GDP of the BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India and China—surpasses
the cumulative GDP of the EU. And according to experts this gap will only increase
in the future.” (Cf. “Putin’s Prepared Remarks at 43d Munich Conference on Security
Policy,”
17.
Putin, “Novyy integratsionnyy proekt dlya Evrazii: budushchee, kotoroe rozhdaetsya segodnya.”
18.
Andreas Umland, “The Stillborn Project of a Eurasian Union: Why Post-Soviet Integration
Has Little Prospects,”
19.
Umland, “The Stillborn Project of a Eurasian Union.”
20.
Tatyana Valovaya, minister responsible for the main areas of integration and macroeconomics
of the Eurasian Economic Commission, reacting to the remark that “the idea of unifying
the countries of the CIS is often called the realization of the imperial ambitions
of our country’s leadership,” said: “In this space some ‘unity’ has always existed.”
She added: “The original six countries of the EEC were, in fact—precisely the empire
of Charlemagne.” Valovaya saw no problem in comparing the empire of Charlemagne, which
ended in 814—this is 1,200 years ago!—with the Russian Empire, which ended only twenty
years ago. (Cf. “Integratsiya obedinyaet vsekh: ot kommunistov do ‘Edinoy Rossii’
i pravykh,”
21.
Putin’s argument is repeated by Yevgeny Vinokurov, who wrote that “one should not
consider European and post-Soviet integration to be mutually exclusive. On the contrary,
the regionalism of the CIS is a step along the way toward integration with the European
Union.” (Y. Yu. Vinokurov, “Pragmaticheskoe evraziystvo,”
22.
Tropkina, Olga. “Yevgeny Primakov nazval usloviya dlya uspekha Evraziyskogo soyuza,”
23.
