The CIS: The End of the Road?

The Commonwealth of Independent States appears near the end of its existence. Even if the organization does survive, it will do so in a significantly different form, political analysts say.

Established amid the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIS has largely failed to fulfill its potential as an institution for the promotion of closer political and economic links. Many member states have been unable to set aside concerns that Russia, the organization's dominant partner, wants to use the CIS as a vehicle for the preservation of Moscow's influence in the former Soviet space. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. As a result, agreements among member states routinely went unimplemented.

Following the latest CIS summit, held August 26 in the central Russian city of Kazan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the organization still had a future. But even Putin had to admit that the CIS, as currently constituted, is dysfunctional. "The issues related to the modernization of CIS bodies are extremely difficult," Putin told a news conference.

Summit participants approved an array of documents, including a protocol on border cooperation and measures to address illegal migration in the coming years. The CIS also threw whatever organizational weight that it has behind Kazakhstan's bid to gain the rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

On the summit's sidelines, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan held talks aimed at reaching a political settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Officials from both countries have been tight-lipped about the substance of recent discussions, known as the Prague process. However, an Armenian presidential aide was quoted by the Mediamax news agency as saying the two-hour meeting in Kazan was a "positive development."

Turkmenistan, meanwhile, garnered attention by downgrading its formal affiliation with the CIS. Mercurial Turkmen leader Saparmurat Niyazov, who skipped the summit, attributed the move to Ashgabat's "status of permanent neutrality." One commentary, published in the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, characterized Turkmenistan's move as the "beginning of the CIS's collapse."

Putin advocated the creation of a council of "wise men" to develop ideas for the reorganization of the CIS. "We have different positions and we are trying to find mutually acceptable proposals through dialogue in order to the turn CIS into effective tool for cooperation," Putin said.

Russia's stance toward the CIS has been undergoing a reevaluation for much of 2005. In March, Putin talked publicly about the CIS acting as a vehicle for a "civilized divorce" among member states. Yet, by May, when Moscow hosted a CIS summit to coincide with festivities marking the 60th anniversary of Victory Day, Putin was again urging CIS participants to strengthen cooperation.

Before the Kazan summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Russia's relations with former Soviet republics should undergo changes. "We should be building our relations on the basis of international norms," Lavrov said at a news conference after meeting fellow CIS foreign ministers. "As market reforms proceed in our countries, we will be increasingly basing our intergovernmental and economic relations on world practices."

Analysts interpreted Lavrov's remarks as a sign that Moscow will now start linking economic assistance to CIS members -- especially in the form of subsidized energy supplies -- to their allegiance to Kremlin foreign policy. Earlier in August, Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin bluntly stated, in comments published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta, that Russian leaders needed to devise new aid strategies that better protected Moscow's geopolitical position. "Russia cannot put up with a situation in which it delivers energy resources at loss-making prices -- effectively subsidizing the economies of those countries -- but the people there remain hungry," Karasin said. "It is such a situation that creates fertile ground for [color] revolutions." Karasin was referring to the recent revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine that brought to power pro-Western leaders. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

In recent years, Russia has tried to diversify its regional political and economic interests, seeking to develop other multilateral organizations, including the Eurasian Economic Commonwealth and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In February 2003, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan agreed to establish a so-called Common Economic Space group (CES) to harmonize economic policies and trade legislation. Like the CIS, however, the CES's future is now in doubt, given that Ukraine, one of the four members, appears unenthused about strengthening economic tries with Russia.

During the Kazan summit, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that his country would not withdraw from the CES. But he stressed that Kyiv would participate in CES activities only in a way that does not contradict Ukraine's main goal of integrating with the European Union.

CES leaders held a separate summit August 27 and reportedly pledged to continue multilateral cooperation. Ukraine, though, declined to sign any agreements involving the possible establishment of "supra-national" institutions. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan pledged to sign a package of 29 agreements by December 1 and an additional 15 agreements by March 2006. The RIA Novosti news agency reported that Ukrainians expressed interest in signing only 15 of the 29 agreements due to be finalized by late this year. Even so, Putin expressed "satisfaction" with the outcome of the CES summit.