The EAEU amid Global Uncertainty Integration Dilemma Revisited

Abstract

The article analyzes the development of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of the so-called integration dilemma, when one state perceives its neighbors’ integration into an economic alliance as a threat to its own security or prosperity. The authors consider the processes of interstate and supranational adaptation, as well as the adaptation of the basic model of integration to the existing practices of interaction as part of the project to ensure four freedoms. The institutional inertia characteristic of the EAEU and the manifest desire primarily to prevent development risks are caused by the “hybrid nature” of the integration association, in which interstate ties and the interests of states often outweigh supranational ones. At the same time, integration cooperation made it possible for the member states to somewhat harmonize and coordinate their joint response to the pandemic. Sweeping anti-Russian sanctions have created new, unprecedented risks for integration cooperation, but at the same time have opened up certain opportunities to overcome their consequences.