CIS offers opportunities for new integration processes at the global level

The meeting of the Council of the heads of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) member countries took place on 8 October in the Grand Kremlin Palace. The meeting in narrow format opened the Moscow summit. Its participants were Vladimir Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, Ilham Aliyev, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, Kassym Jomart Tokayev, the President of Kazakhstan, Sadir Japarov, the President of Kyrgyzstan, Emomali Rahmon, the President of Tajikistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedov, the President of Turkmenistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, the President of Uzbekistan, and Sergey Lebedev, the CIS General Secretary. After that, the meeting continued in an extended format with participation of the members of the delegations [1]. In 2024, Russia holds the presidency in the Commonwealth, so this CIS summit represents a high point of all the political events under the guidance of Moscow.

Common agenda

The CIS summit agenda included 14 items based on analyzing the proposals initiated by the member states. Sergey Lebedev, the CIS General Secretary, presented the report about the agenda. He invests big on-going efforts into strengthening the focus on cooperation within the Commonwealth. Thus, the summit participants analyzed the issue of 2025 presidency in the Commonwealth of Independent States, now it will pass to Tajikistan. The parties also discussed the next meeting of the Council of the CIS member countries planned for 10 October 2025 in Dushanbe. In the context of preparation for celebrating the 80^th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War the summit adopted the address to the CIS nations and to the international community associated with this date. The decision was made to establish the CIS honorary title of «The City of Labor Glory, 1941-1945». It is to be assigned to the cities, where the residents made a special contribution into achieving the Victory. All this will become visible symbols of appraising the collective heroic deeds of our nations [2].

Another important item on the summit agenda was analyzing the activities of CIS Interparliamentary Assembly to strengthen the integration and cooperation of the member countries. The CIS leaders heard the report of the Chair of the Council of the Interparliamentary Assembly Valentina Matviyenko, the Speaker of the Council of Federation. She spoke about improving the organization of the activities of the Assembly and its adaptation to the modern realities. The activities of the Interparliamentary Assembly are focused on harmonization and rapprochement of the national laws of the member countries and creating the common legal framework. The elections monitoring remains the important mission of the Assembly as it provides for the legitimacy of power. Participation of independent monitoring groups creates a solid barrier against interference of unfriendly countries into the electoral procedures. «Over the recent 30 years monitoring groups of the Interparliamentary Assembly took part in monitoring presidential and parliamentary campaigns and elections», – Valentina Matviyenko said. The CIS Interparliamentary Assembly also undertakes meaningful steps to develop humanitarian cooperation. A series of major international events took place under the auspices of the Assembly representing an efficient format of promoting integration processes [3].

The CIS summit adopted several important documents in the sphere of security and law enforcement. The experts notice that Russia values the 2025-2027 cooperation program in the sphere of deradicalization initiated by the President of Uzbekistan. Minutes of changes to the 2010 CIS Agreement on cross-border criminal investigations. Four new base cooperation organizations of CIS member countries were established as the result of the summit. The Academy of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia became the base organization for training in the sphere of counteracting terrorism and extremism. It will be assuring common standards in security. The Association of Russian Volunteer Centers also received the status of the base organization for development of the volunteer movement, and the Republican Institute of Higher Education of Belarus – the status of the base organization for scientific and methodology support of the volunteer movement of youth. Russian Federal Chamber of Lawyers received the status of the base organization for practice in law. Russian Media Industry Academy – the status of the base organization for professional upgrading and retraining in the sphere of media and mass communications [4]. These decisions will promote strengthening of mutual ties of CIS member countries at the grassroot, expert and professional levels.

Solid union

In the course of the CIS summit President Putin emphasized the importance of close coordination between the member countries in the foreign policy sphere. He also noted the dynamic development of humanitarian ties and deepening of partnership in science. «Close coordination between the CIS member countries at the foreign policy track is extremely important», – Vladimir Putin said. In addition, the Russian President confirmed the invitation to all the national leaders of CIS member countries to participate in the BRICS+/outreach events in Kazan on 23-24 October. In the current turbulent situation, all over the world it is extremely important that al the CIS member countries are advocates of the fair global order based on the universally recognized principles of international law given the central role of the United Nations Organization. «We are coordinating our positions on the key global and regional problems on the on-going bases, and our approaches are either very similar or practically the same», – the Russian leader believes. This allows to say that the CIS is gradually growing stronger and offers additional opportunities for new integration processes at the global level [5].

The President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev also spoke about strengthening of the CIS position on the global arena. In particular, he offered to create an extended format of interaction between the Commonwealth member countries and other states. «The weight of the CIS on the global scale is growing. Last year we established the statuses of the CIS observer and the CIS partner demonstrating the openness and the maturity of our organization. In continuation of this institutional activity, I propose to explore the possibility of establishing the «CIS+ format», Tokayev said [6]. The President of Kyrgyzstan Sadir Japarov supported the need for combining and deepening the ties between the member countries. «We are interested in joint efforts to assure food and energy security, as well in receiving access to the new state-of-the-art technologies and innovations», – he proclaimed.

In his turn, the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko called for the need to develop and strengthen the capabilities of the CIS member countries in various areas, including technological development, healthcare and culture. «We need a solid union of strong and economically self-sufficient sovereign states. We are talking about equal terms and respect of the national interests on a regular basis. And we have achieved a lot already, but there is still room for improvement», – Lukashenko noted. We can only agree with this evaluation, because we are witnessing the «second birth» of the CIS project. The Commonwealth is becoming a new form of the «soft» integration around Russia, it unites a number of friendly countries which cannot yet join the EAEU or the CSTO due to sanctions or other reasons. The Caspian Institute for Strategic Studies in his earlier report commented, that the new statuses of observer and partner will allow the CIS to go beyond the tight post-Soviet patterns and to become the center of attraction for other truly independent states of the non-Western choice [7].

Economic cooperation

Several documents pertaining to the CIS organization and functioning, as well as to development of the economic and cultural ties between the member countries were signed in the course of the summit. The President of Russia informed about significant economic growth of the CIS member countries emphasizing the cumulative GDP growth by 4.7% and the growth of fixed capital investment by 11.2% by the end of H1 2024. According to Vladimir Putin, positive macroeconomic dynamics are observed across the entire Commonwealth. The GDP of the member countries is growing at a good rate, the mutual commercial and investment ties are strengthening. For example, the trade turnover of Russia with CIS member countries grew by 7.7% over seven months – up to USD 63.2 bn, and that was achieved despite the high volatility in the global markets. National companies within the CIS are implementing mutually beneficial joint projects in energy, industrial manufacturing and infrastructure, jointly implementing the import phase-out programs. The financial system independent of external factors is being built focused on using national currencies. «The share of national currencies in mutual settlements between the CIS member countries is already exceeding 85%, and it continues to grow», – Vladimir Putin claimed [8].

In his speech the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev emphasized the importance of commercial and economic cooperation against the background of global economic instability. He proposed to launch an inter-state program «The Commonwealth Fair» to incentivize the development or cross-border trade within the CIS. Tokayev also focused on development of transportation corridors and on digitalization as the key factors for deepening the economic ties in the FSU region. Experts agree that these proposals of the President of Kazakhstan are in line with the long-term strategy of Astana targeted at developing the transportation corridors. Remember that in May 2024 Kassym-Jomart Tokayev speaking at the jubilee summit of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in Moscow also proposed a series of important initiatives in the sphere of international transit. The leader of Kazakhstan proposed to upgrade and expand the Eurasian corridors and to assure seamless logistics [9].

In the above-mentioned speech of the President of Kazakhstan it was noted that the efficient commercial and economic cooperation in the CIS is closely connected with the development of the transportation corridors. Tokayev emphasized that Kazakhstan had launched Êàçàõñòàí a far-reaching expansion of its railway infrastructure for the main international routes. Last year, Astana proposed to develop the Concept of interlinking the major traffic arterials crossing the territories of the CIS member countries. «Overall, high-quality synchronization of such major global projects as «one Belt, one Road», «North-South ITC», the Trans-Caspian route and others will allow for building a common concept of economic, institutional and transportation development across the Eurasian continent», Kassym-Jomart Tokayev stated [10]. Experts believe that such integrated infrastructural solutions will allow for further interlinking and expanding the capabilities of Eurasian transport arterials positively affecting the entire CIS. It will also create the pre-requisites for including the production sites and R&D centers of all the CIS member countries into the labor division system inside the exponentially growing Asian macro-region.

Estimations and narratives

 Analysts note that such regular meetings of the leaders of the CIS countries are very meaningful. We have already developed a heart-warming tradition to get together as one big tightly knit family on the eve of major post-Soviet holidays – the New Year and the Victory Day, as well as on the birthday of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. These political rhythms clearly visualize the leading role of Russia within the CIS and the growing level of political loyalty of the post-Soviet leaders. During the protocol and unformal events, the leaders of the CIS member countries discuss many other issues including regional and international ones. Such non-standard format of friendly contacts with unfettered discussions turned out to be pretty productive. According to Yuri Ushakov, the Advisor to the President of Russia on foreign policy issues, in the end of December 2024, following the existing tradition, Saint-Petersburg will host another informal meeting of the leaders of the CIS member countries. This year it will be connected with the summit of the heads of the EARU member states.

 Russia views the CIS member countries as friends and strategic partners, it intends to strengthen comprehensive cooperation with them. «First of all, I would like to emphasize that our interaction within the CIS framework is one of the key foreign policy priorities of the Russian Federation», – President Putin claimed. Russia is an active participant of the global politics; however, it views the CIS both as its own «large space» and as a historically self-important universe. In essence Moscow is implementing its own analogue of the Monroe doctrine in Northern Eurasia implying the creation of a local international system tolerant to external interference. The CIS project is becoming extrinsically valuable for Russia and its allies as the space of independent civilizational choice and an areal for preserving the non-Western values. It is worth noting that the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko claimed the intent to restore the CIS in its previous format including Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova; he expressed his confidence in that happening sooner or later.

 According to the expert estimates the joint import phase-out efforts and common transportation and logistics are the key growth drivers for the CIS member countries. The spiraling crisis of the Western model shows that the future belongs to major macro-regions and geo-economic blocks capable of autonomous survival similar to submarine compartments. The importance of constructive cooperation with the neighboring countries is growing in the modern turbulent world, as it results not only in economic indicators, but in a stable situation with transport as well. Joint efforts of the CIS member countries can create a conceptually new geo-economic situation in Eurasia and reliable unite the «large spaces» of the global economy.

 We should especially note that provision of powerful international guarantees for logistical and energy transmitting routes is possible only within the common CIS framework. The unified system of transit corridors will allow for the post-Soviet states to resolve a series of their strategic objectives: improve the cohesiveness and strengthen the integrity of the CIS member countries, as well as to improve the geo-economical position of Russia and its allies on the global arena. This will provide new qualitative features for the economy of the commonwealth and improve the CIS attractiveness for the surrounding countries of the Global South.