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Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
Security and Cooperation in Europe, are at different stages of development. At present, the EEC and SIECA are collaborating to conclude a Memorandum of Understanding. In some cases, EAEU participation goes further than stipulated by the memoranda of understanding. For instance, Belarus has observer status in the Pacific Alliance and the ACS; the Russian Federation is an extra-regional observer of SICA, the Latin American Association of Integration (LAIA) and ACS, and also maintains a dialogue with the CELAC and the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America (ALBA). Recently, EEC has advanced in deepening contacts with various specialized international structures including many organizations related to the United Nations. Nearly 40 memoranda of cooperation have been signed with such organizations. The dialogue has also been intense with the regional commissions of the United Nations, including ECLAC, as well as UNECE (in which all EAEU member States are regional members) and ESCAP (which includes all EAEU countries, except for Belarus).
(ii)
Trade agreements
Non-preferential and preferential trade agreements imply the identification and elimination of, respectively, both non-tariff and tariff barriers. The latter might also include agreements on liberalizing trade in services, investment, harmonising anti-trust law, etc. In 2016, the first EAEU FTA with Viet-Nam has entered into force and within a year trade volume increased by 36.7%. Furthermore, all EAEU member States are parties to the CIS FTA and in 2019 Serbia’s bilateral free trade agreement was transformed into a multilateral FTA. An important achievement is an “Interim Agreement Leading to the Creation of a Free Trade Area” with Iran that entered into force in 2019. Representing an attractive corridor to the vast market of the Middle East, Iran is not a WTO member, which allows the country to alter its trade policy regime depending on the economic environment. For EAEU economic agents embarking on business with Iranian counterparts, the trade agreement alleviates uncertainty and risk. In 2019, an agreement on comprehensive economic cooperation and a free trade agreement was signed with Singapore: these stipulate the liberalization in the spheres of goods, services and investment. Trade negotiations are currently underway with Israel, Egypt and India. The Greater Eurasian Partnership is another important strategy focused on the Eurasian vision of building an association open for mutually beneficial cooperation with internal and external partners. The most ambitious initiative within this megaproject is the conjugation of EAEU with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The EAEU-China agreement “On trade and economic cooperation”, concluded in 2018, was the first step towards this goal. Although the agreement is non-preferential and does not imply the elimination of tariffs, it establishes the prerequisites for trade simplification and ensuring transparency in trade policy. This agreement enables not only mutual trade, but also joint value chains that can spur economic growth in Eurasia.
3.
Cooperation between Latin America and the Caribbean and the Eurasian Economic Union
As of 2020, the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan have established diplomatic relations with all LAC States. Some LAC countries did not establish diplomatic relations with the Russian Empire or the USSR but nevertheless reached diplomatic agreements with all EAEU member States. For now, diplomatic relations have not been established between Armenia and Barbados; Belarus and Saint Lucia; Kyrgyzstan and the Bahamas, Barbados, Haiti and Saint Lucia. LAC countries often have a diplomatic representation based in the Russian Federation, Belarus and Kazakhstan from where they serve other EAEU member States. The Russian Federation
