Source: Voice of Russia

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his nation will continue to restore its old ties with former Soviet republics, as it takes further steps to attract nations to participate in a single economic zone that it hopes would result in a Eurasian Union. What began as the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan is now being developed into an economic partnership that those involved hope would rival the United States and China on the international scene.

Russia's Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, wrote an article to a Russian publication in early October to outline his vision of the Eurasian Economic Union. The western media responded by accusing Putin of attempting to revive the Soviet Union, to which Putin said his idea was about economic integration of sovereign states.

“Norms existing in the European Union were taken into consideration while shaping the framework for the Eurasian Union agreement,” said Yuri Solozobov, an analyst for the National Strategy Institute. “By the year 2020, we plan to have a zone of associative trade with the EU. Now we are considering several strong transit projects linking the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.”

Apart from a free trade zone, member states could unite their electricity networks and start trading in national currencies, or even introduce a single currency. Experts for the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CTSO) have begun hammering out the details, while Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have already showed interest in joining.