Individual Democratic Institutions Research Fellowships 1994-1996

The research reports reproduced here are the responsibility of the individual authors. Their reproduction does not imply any form of official or unofficial endorsement by NATO. The reports are offered in unedited form, as presented by their authors, with a view to make their findings available to a wide audience. Ukraine And European Security - International Mechanisms As Non-Military Options For National Security Of Ukraine. Bohdan Lupiy [Back to Index] Chapter 3. "Gradual" Approach Section 2. Ukraine and the CIS 2.4. CIS integration as the Development of Political Formation. Russian ethusiasm in the development of the CIS has naturally rised some fears among CIS leaders, and particularly the Ukrainian ones, that unclear CIS legislative basis and vast differences in size and power between them and Russia would lead to Russian domination and following, to lose of independence. In spite of this, appears a question of identification of the CIS as a political formation. If to do so, it is necessary to analyze the CIS constituent documents. This attempt, however, would face serious difficulties, because instead of definite and functional statute, it is organized through several documents and agreements. As far as Article 12 of the Minsk Agreement says that the Commonwealth is not "a state or above state formation" one can consider it as an international inter-governmental organization with regional character, through its regional nature is built upon the principle that all member-states are the former Soviet Republics. Indeed, the recent processes in the Commonwealth shows that it is still an amorphous organisation without strongly defined membership, and without its own, supported by all participants, charter. Continuing economic inter-dependence among the CIS states has probably, crucial effect on the present developments within the Commonwealth, which came into being at a time of growing political and economic chaos. Thus, it is irrational to expect that it would be a coherent and smoothly proceeding process of integration. Karl Deutsch defines regional integration as a process, which unites countries "...by some geographical, cultural, and historical associations; ...by economic and financial ties, ...by political reasons and similarity of social institutions, or by some combination of all of these factors".(191) When attaining and maintaining integration, international organizations have often been seen as the best pathway for leading humanity out of the idea of the nation-state toward interdependent international society. In spite of this, Deutsch puts the main tasks of integration as following: maintaining peace; attaining greater multi-purpose capabilities; accomplishing some specific tasks; gaining new self-image and identity.(192) As one can assert, in general the features of the CIS' integration satisfy in all above-mentioned criterias, which preface the process of integration: the states involved in this process, are situated in the Eurasian area (geografical principle) and being the parts of the former USSR (historical, and to some extent, cultural association), they used to the constitute of one military alliance under central commanding and with previously highly integrated system of defence. One the other hand, at its current stage, the CIS' functioning does not comply with four main tasks of effective process of integration, outlined by Deutch - foremost, the CIS seems to be incapable to regulate disputes and manage military clashes within its area; as well as to gain 'new identity' for its member-states, which still prefer bi-lateral ties to multi-lateral ones. It is also unable to 'attain great capabilities', which extent the scope of preoccupation with economic need of many states to participate. Finally, there is no clear "specific task" of the Commonwealth functioning, as according to Deutch's classification - the long debate over the CIS constituent documents revealed basic conceptual differences in attitudes, with one view expressed most forcefully by Kazakhstan and Belarus, stressing the need to establish a more coherent community, and others firmly arguing that it should be little more than a forum for inter-governmental consultations on specific issues. Yet, there are no consensus among the member states over the way that the CIS should develop further.