Interviews | Economy | Central Asia

What Do Central Asians Think About the Eurasian Economic Union?

Dr. Zhanibek Arynov shares insights gleaned from his research into public perceptions of the EAEU in Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, a decade after the organization’s launch.

On January 1, 2015, the Eurasian Economic Union came into being with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan its founding members, joined by Armenia the following day and Kyrgyzstan several months later. 

The EAEU has often been characterized by analysts as just another Russian-dominated regional project mapping onto parts of the former Soviet Union, more important for the fact of its existence than its impacts on member-state economies. For its part, the union promised a transition to a functioning common market and the economic dividends that could yield.

The EAEU intended for 2025 – its 10th anniversary – to mark the end of its initial transition period. A decade on, analysts and commentators continued to grapple with the EAEU as an economic project and a political one. 

But what do people inside the EAEU think about it? In a recent article published by Eurasian Geography and Economics, Dr. Zhanibek Arynov and Diyas Takenov set out to find answers to that question. In the following interview with The Diplomat’s Catherine Putz, Arynov – a researcher on Central Asian geopolitics and assistant professor at Nazarbayev University’s Graduate School of Public Policy – details their findings on the public perceptions of the EAEU in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

How does the EAEU fit into the pantheon of multilateral projects across the former Soviet Union?

We know that there are many multilateral projects in the post-Soviet space. We also know that most of these projects are not very effective. In this plethora of different multilateral initiatives, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) stands out as the most comprehensive supranational project.

From the very beginning, the EAEU has had its own governing institutions, including the Eurasian Economic Commission. In this regard, the five member states of the EAEU have ceded part of their sovereignty in the economic field to the Union.

In this sense, the EAEU can be considered a unique multilateral project compared to other initiatives in the post-Soviet space.

The Eurasian Economic Union intended for 2025 to mark the end of its initial transition period following its 2015 launch. What were the EAEU’s stated goals for its first decade? 

Indeed, the EAEU identified 2025 as the end of its transition period, with official and strategic documents outlining several key objectives to be achieved by that date. Four priorities stand out. 

First, the Union was expected to complete its transition to an effective common market. However, we see that the common market is still not functioning effectively, with recurring frictions between member states, including disputes involving all member states. 

Second, it aimed to develop into a scientific and technological space fostering innovation. Despite some positive developments in the early stages, including the digitalization of certain sectors, the goal of creating a shared technological and innovation space appears increasingly uncertain, as member states struggle to keep pace with today’s rapid technological advances. Russia’s technological isolation makes this objective impossible to achieve.

Third, it sought to improve the quality of life across member states. In reality, there has been little qualitative progress in this regard. On the contrary, most member states today face greater socio-economic challenges than in the past, and, as our findings suggest, most citizens attribute these problems directly to EAEU membership.

Finally, the EAEU aspired to position itself as a global economic powerhouse and to develop diversified partnerships with external actors. While the Union has concluded several external trade agreements, it remains partially isolated, particularly as Western actors have largely refrained from formal engagement. Likewise, its interactions with China and the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative] have not advanced significantly beyond declaratory or framework agreements. Consequently, it is difficult to argue that the EAEU has emerged as a key player in the international system.

Your research focused on public perceptions of the EAEU in Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. How did you go about gauging that? What are the challenges inherent to trying to capture public perceptions?

In this paper, we examine public perceptions of the EAEU across Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. We argue that public perceptions matter even in contexts where public opinion has limited direct influence on formal political decision-making. Such perceptions can still shape the broader societal context within which policymakers operate and may indirectly inform policy choices.

From a methodological perspective, studying public perceptions is inherently challenging. This difficulty is amplified when the focus is on multilateral organizations, about which the general public often has limited knowledge. As a result, perceptions tend to be superficial, fragmented, or shaped by stereotypes, a pattern also observed in other regional integration contexts, including the European Union. Consequently, achieving a deeper understanding of public attitudes toward multilateral institutions requires careful methodological design.

A second set of challenges relates to data availability and quality. In this study, we combine original focus group discussions with existing public opinion surveys. However, in the context of Central Asia and Armenia, available survey data remain fragmented and inconsistent over time. There is a lack of regular, longitudinal polling on attitudes toward the EAEU, which limits the ability to track changes in public opinion. Moreover, many of the available surveys, particularly from the early years of the EAEU, were conducted by EAEU-affiliated institutions or government bodies, raising potential concerns about bias.

Finally, studying public perceptions on politically sensitive topics in non-democratic or semi-authoritarian contexts presents additional challenges, including the risks of censorship and self-censorship among respondents. These factors can affect both the reliability and the depth of the data collected.

Despite these constraints, our fieldwork experience across the selected countries was largely positive. We conducted a series of focus group discussions without encountering significant obstacles, and participants were generally open and engaged in discussing the topic. While the study is subject to the limitations outlined above, the data collection process itself proved feasible.

How was the EAEU initially perceived in the three countries you examined?

Public attitudes toward the EAEU have consistently been polarized, although this pattern is not unique in the context of regional integration projects. On the one hand, there is a group of “Eurasian supporters” who perceive the EAEU as beneficial for their respective countries. In Kazakhstan, for instance, the idea of Eurasianism has been........

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