Earasian Economic Community

EurAsian Customs Union (EACU) was established in 2000 between Russian Federation, Kazakhstan and Belarus, which is now succeeded by the Eurasian Economic Union (EEC) with the joining of two additional countries Kyrgyz Republic and Armenia. Its purpose was to remove trade barriers in order to set up the legal framework for handling the import – export of goods and reduce or eliminate the customs duty on mutual trade.

Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) is a permanent regulatory body of the Eurasian Economic Union. It started functioning on February 2, 2012.

The main objective of the Eurasian Economic Commission is to ensure functioning and development of the EAEU, to prepare proposals for its further integration.

At the moment there are four countries represented within the EEC: the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation. The EEC holds the status of supranational regulatory body and the keystone of its activity are the interests of the Eurasian community as an integrative initiative where no national interests prevail over those of the community.  Decisions of the Commission are binding on the territory of the EAEU member states.

The EAEU establishment is based on the understanding that four countries together will be able to both reduce the negative effects of global uncertainty and to actively promote their interests in foreign markets.  The Eurasian Economic Union is open for other states which share the goals of the unifying  and are ready to  assume the required obligations.

The most important element of the Commission’s work is that all the decisions are taken on collective basis.  The Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission consists of 12 members (each member state is represented by 3 Board Members (Ministers)), and one of them is the Chairman of the Board of the Commission.

The Chairman and Members of the Board are appointed by the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council at the level of the member states heads for a four year renewable term. Decisions are taken by voting.

The activity of the EEC comprises separate functions, each supervised by a Board Member (Minister). Each function encompasses a number of industries and areas of economic activity. Members of the Board and EEC Departments coordinate with the relevant government bodies within their respective fields of expertise.

At present time the EEC comprises of 23 departments. Moreover, 18 consultative committees were established for the Departments to prepare proposals for the EEC Board and to negotiate with national bodies of member states.  The Board Members (Ministers) are the chairmen of the committees in accordance with their professional profile.

In its activity the Board always maintains the inclusive dialogue with its key partners. The first level is the interstate dialogue which entails development of effective cooperation with national bodies during the decision-making process. The second level is a direct collaboration with business community.

The key professional principles of the EEC activity are avoidance of politicization, balance of interests, effectiveness and transparency.

The EEC is actively involved in the international cooperation in order to promote the vision of the Eurasian Community and to attract key partners from the European and Asia Pacific regions to the integration processes. 

The key trends of activities of the Eurasian Economic Commission are: 

• Charging and distributing import customs duties;
• Establishing trade regimes in respect of third countries;
• Statistics of foreign and mutual trade;
• Macroeconomic policy;
• Competition policy;
• Industrial and agricultural subsidies;
• Energy policy;
• Natural monopolies;
• State and /or municipal procurements;
• Mutuall trade in services and investments;
• Transport and transportations;
• Foreign currency policy;
• Protection of intellectual property rights and means of individualization of goods, works and services;
• Labour migration;
• Financial markets (banks, insurance, foreign exchange market, securities market);
• Customs tariff and non-tariff regulation;
• Customs administration;
• etc.​

You will find more information on the Website of Eurasian Commission (in English).