Commonwealth of Independent States
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS; Russian: Содружество Независимых Государств, tr. Sodrúzhestvo Nezavísimyj Gosudárstv) is a supranational organization made up of nine of the fifteen former republics of the Soviet Union, with the exception of the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), which are currently members of the European Union; Turkmenistan, which left the organization on August 26, 2005 to become an associate member; Georgia, which withdrew on August 18, 2009; and Ukraine, which despite having been a founding State and de facto member, was never a de jure member of the CEI since it did not ratify the statute of the organization. Mongolia participates in some CIS structures as an observer member.
Its creation signed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and, according to Vladimir Putin, its purpose was to allow a "civilized divorce" between the republics that made up the Soviet Union. Since the creation of the CIS, numerous agreements have been signed on economic cooperation, defense and international relations, and collective security among its member states. From within this community emerged the political-military alliance called the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
History
By 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was inevitable, despite the fact that the referendums held in most of its republics showed clear support for maintaining the constitutionality and institutionality of the Soviet Union. On December 8, the leaders of the Russian SFSR, Byelorussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR met in the Belavézhskaya Pushcha nature reserve, 50 kilometers north of the city of Brest in Belarus, where they signed the Belavezha Treaty. This is how the idea of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was born, at the same time that they announced that the new confederation would be open to all Soviet republics, as well as to all those who share the same objectives.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev described the meeting as "illegal and dangerous" and "a constitutional blow to the nation." But it soon became clear that there was little or nothing to be done. On December 21, the leaders of 11 of the 15 republics of the Soviet Union met in Alma Ata, in the Kazakh SSR, and signed the treaty. In this way, the CIS was ratified and the Soviet Union officially dissolved.
On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigns as president of a country that no longer existed. The three Baltic republics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) did not sign the treaty, as did the Georgian SSR: all four countries argued that they had been forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union.
The original eleven states were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. In December 1993, Georgia finally joined the CIS after a civil war in which Russian troops intervened in favor of the government of Eduard Shevardnadze, close to Moscow. On August 26, 2005, Turkmenistan left the body to become an associate member. In August 2008, Georgia announced its full withdrawal from the CIS after the war in South Ossetia, and ceased to be a formal member of the body in August 2009. In March 2014, Ukraine announced that it ceased to participate in the CIS after Crimea's accession to Russia, and its representatives were withdrawn in May 2018, due to the Donbass war.
Role and organization of the CEI
The CIS headquarters are located in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. The position of "president of the CEI" is known as "executive secretary". To date, most of its leadership has been Russian or Belarusian. The organization is currently headed by Sergei Nikolayevich Lebedev.
Historically, the CIS can be seen as the successor organization to the Soviet Union. However, it is noteworthy that the CIS is not a State in itself like the USSR, and is comparable to the European Union, due to its supranational nature, rather than the Soviet Union, which was a federal State but, after all,, A state.
The IEC is in charge of coordinating the trade, finance, law and security of the member states. Few of these powers are exercised at a supranational level, and it is criticized (internally and externally) as a symbolic organization. To change this, the most important priority of the organization is the establishment of a free zone in its orbit and the economic union of its members.
During the 1992 Olympic Games (winter in Albertville, France, and summer in Barcelona, Spain) the CEI participated under the name of the Unified Team, composed mostly of athletes from 12 Soviet republics, for the first and only time. In other sporting events of the same year (such as Eurocopa 1992) the CIS football team also participates. Since 1993, each Member State has competed under its own national flag.
In Miss Universe 1992, a candidate was submitted on behalf of the IEC, who represented all the nations that belonged to the organization.
Institutions
The members of the CEI can interact and coordinate their actions through the following institutions:
- Council of Heads of State.
- Council of Heads of Government.
- Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs.
- Council of Ministers of Defence.
- Inter-Parliamentary Assembly: Established in March 1992 as a consultation institution, the first participants were Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Between 1993 and 1996 Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova also joined. Ukraine agreed to join in 1999.
The Inter-Parliamentary Assembly holds its sessions in Saint Petersburg twice a year, and is made up of parliamentary delegations from each of its member states. The Interparliamentary Assembly has permanent commissions: Legal Affairs, Economy and Finance, Social Policy and Human Rights, Ecology and Natural Resources.
- Economic Court.
- E Economic and Social.
- Executive Committee.
- Council of Border Commanders.
- Interstate Bank.
- Interstate Statistics Committee.
In 1992 it was agreed to establish an Arbitration Court, with headquarters in Minsk, and an Economic Advisory Council with headquarters in kyiv.
News
Between 2003 and 2005, presidents of three CIS countries were deposed in a series of Color Revolutions: Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, Leonid Kuchma in Ukraine, and Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan. The new governments took a distinctly pro-Western turn, trying to move away from Moscow's influence and closer to both the European Union and the United States.
Few of these incidents have been resolved in a harmonious way for Russia, since only Kyrgyzstan, after a popular revolt between 2009 and 2013, returned to the Russian sphere of influence, with the help of military force and Russian intelligence. the regional power; with which it was able to return to the previous conditions, and resume its bilateral relations in an orderly manner.
In the Ukrainian case, the political persecution of Yulia Timoshenko and her political movement has cost them serious international criticism, apart from her indecisive position on whether to join the EU or the CIS have led her not to formalize and/or deepen her relations relations both with the CIS as a whole and in the international environment, and above all, with the former Soviet republics strongly linked to Russia.
The country that has been most radically opposed to the CIS has been Georgia, after the result of the armed conflict of 2008, after which it has shown a defiant attitude towards the Russian Federation, since in the conflict, the nations self-proclaimed South Ossetia and Abkhazia were recognized by Russia, which took away quite a few pieces of land. Besides, Georgia has signed numerous agreements with the United States, and apparently is in the process of an agreement for its admission to NATO, but Georgian nationalists have been reluctant to this idea, and aside, they have advocated for the normalization of relations with Russia, given the deficient macroeconomic results.
Another country that is distancing itself from the Kremlin is Moldova, which is moving closer to the European Union and further away from the CIS, due to its strong ties to Romania, and the persistent conflict in Transnistria. This last republic does not act as a subject of international law, and is not recognized except by the also self-proclaimed South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
- Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States at present:
- Armenia
- Azerbaijan
- Belarus
- Kazakhstan
- Kyrgyzstan
- Moldova
- Russia
- Tajikistan
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
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