About: Eurasian Union Archives

Everybody understands that Russia will not beg the EU to abandon sanctions, but the longer the sanctions persist, the more Russia will develop its import substitution, writes Vladimir Chizhov.

The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is fooling the EU, like Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceau?escu did during the Cold War, Ales Bialiatski told EURACTIV in an exclusive interview.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wrote to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, suggesting closer trade ties between the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Union once a ceasefire is implemented in Ukraine.

The new EU trade strategy, Trade For All, seeks to please everybody, but fails to confront the most difficult issues ahead of EU trade policy, argues Iana Dreyer.

The European Union’s double standards in its dealings with Azerbaijan are damaging to the trust of a people that embraces European values, writes Ceyhun Osmanl?.

Similarly to Ukraine, post-Soviet Kazakhstan is also asserting its national identity, but the absence of EU ambition toward Astana and its participation in the Eurasian Union preserves the country from a Donbass-type scenario, writes Michael Emerson

A prominent Russian diplomat has called on the EU to abandon his “messianic” project of exporting democracy and instead solve its problems together with Russia, and not at its expense.

More than 9,000 demonstrators rallied in the Armenian capital yesterday (24 June) for a sixth consecutive day, defying police calls to abandon their protest against electricity price hikes and police violence.

Kazakhstan's president on Monday (22 June) hailed the "new horizons" opening up to his country after the former Soviet state completed nearly two decades of talks on joining the World Trade Organisation.

Ukraine's foreign minister said his country wants assurances at a summit with the European Union this week that it is a suitable candidate for EU membership, and that its citizens will gain visa-free travel to the bloc next year.

In the last 15 years, Armenia and the EU have been developing an increasingly close relationship going beyond co-operation to involve a significant measure of economic integration and a deepening political cooperation: from the EU-Armenia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (1999) to the inclusion in the European Neighbourhood Policy (2004) and the Eastern Partnership (2009).

The Eastern Partnership Initiative (EaP) lacks a more tailored approach to partner countries as well as comprehensive security element, wrotes Václav Lídl.

?Moscow’s push for Yerevan to adopt anti-NGO legislation is just the latest sign of its determination to mold Armenia into a loyal vassal that does its bidding with no questions asked, writes Armine Sahakyan.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has suggested EU states could re-engage with Russia on global diplomacy, trade and other issues in return for gradual steps to defuse the crisis over Ukraine.

Russian propaganda is taking the EU off-guard. Some who still remember the Communist days say it is reaching heights unknown, since the end of the Cold War. Thirty years ago, this propaganda was on the defensive, while now Moscow is on the offensive, writes Georgi Gotev.

European policymakers have the tools and the intelligence to retain influence in Ukraine, but they would need to look to Mr Mario Draghi to find the right model for deploying them, write Jorge Mariscal and Nick Rice.

Russia has stepped up its efforts to consolidate ties with governments and forces in EU countries sympathetic to Moscow, for historic or economic reasons, or both. The EURACTIV network reports.

Asked “If there is a referendum today, what would you choose: EU membership for Bulgaria or membership in Russia’s Eurasian Union?” 22% of respondents in Bulgaria said they said would vote for Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical project, according to a new poll. Conversely, 40% say they are for EU membership.

As the European Union and Russia prepare to meet next week (28 January) at their biannual summit, EU leaders should prepare to address the tough questions about Moscow’s assertive diplomacy and how it is overshadowing Brussels’ strategies in the east, writes Bruno Lété.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has accused the European Union of trying to impose a free trade agreement on Ukraine that will likely ruin its economy. Speaking in Brussels yesterday (16 December), he advocated instead a “unified economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok” to be established between the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Union. 

EXCLUSIVE / The European Union has not offered Ukraine the prospect of full membership of the Western bloc so a fully-fledged membership of the Russian Customs and Eurasian Union is a better deal, the Russian ambassador to the EU told EURACTIV in an interview.

Armenia will join a customs union led by its former Soviet master Russia, the country’s President Serzh Sargsyan said yesterday (3 September), a move incompatible with the free trade agreement the EU is preparing with Yerevan.

Time is short for Kyiv to make tangible reforms ahead of the November Vilnius summit, and in the meantime the EU-Ukraine relationship is “slowly running out of runway”, a high European Commission official told the European Parliament yesterday (5 June).