Integration barometer
The third wave of public opinion research, the EDB Integration Barometer, conducted by the Integration Research Center of the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) and the Eurasian Monitor agency, revealed a number of new trends in the perception of Eurasian integration by the population of the former USSR.The Integration Barometer survey series was conducted in April-May of 2014 in the territory of 10 of the Commonwealth countries (excluding Turkmenistan) and Georgia, which left the CIS after the five-day war of 2008. In each country, not less than 1 of thousands of people were interviewed. and the total number of survey participants exceeded 13 thousand. Attitude of residents of the former Soviet republics to integration processes was studied in political, economic and cultural aspects, which allowed covering all the main points of perception of Eurasian integration. As an analysis tool, the notion of attraction was used, which included kinship and business ties, the presence of interest and sympathy for a particular country, as well as readiness to interact with it at different levels.
The key research question is the attitude of the population of the CIS countries to the main integration projects of the post-Soviet space - the Customs Union (CU) and the Common Economic Space (CES), on the basis of which the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will be created from 1 in January 2015. The positions of the population of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, which are already members of these associations, and the rest of the CIS states in this regard are noticeably different. In the countries of the integration, the troika of the CU and the EP approve of the population from 2 / 3 to 3 / 4, which indicates their wide public support. The highest approval level for Eurasian integration was recorded in Kazakhstan (84%), followed by Russia (79%) and Belarus (68%). Moreover, in Kazakhstan, the number of endorsing vehicles increased by 11% compared to last year, in Russia - by 12%, and in Belarus - only by 3%. The level of public support for Eurasian integration in Belarus - the smallest economy of the union, strongly dependent on Russia, remains at the lowest level since 2012.
Among those countries that are not members of the CU, the highest level of its public support was recorded in Tajikistan (72%) and Uzbekistan (68%), which are the leaders of Central Asia in terms of the number of labor migrants working in Russia. Meanwhile, both countries distance themselves from participation in Eurasian integration.
Particularly striking differences between the policies of the ruling elites, who consistently refuse to participate in any integration projects, and the position of the population, whose 2 / 3 are focused on the CU, look like in Uzbekistan. The level of support for Eurasian integration in Armenia (64%), which from 1 in January 2015 will become a member of the CU, is lower than in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, but significantly higher than in the other candidate country for joining the union - Kyrgyzstan (50%) .
The situation in Kyrgyzstan looks increasingly alarming. Despite the fact that the leadership of the republic announced its desire to join the Customs Union as far back as 2011, Bishkek is noticeably behind Yerevan on the path to Eurasian integration. Moreover, the level of support for the CU by residents of the country compared to 2013 was reduced from 67 to 50%. The economy of Kyrgyzstan after the collapse of the USSR was based on the re-export of Chinese goods, as well as the import of fabrics and accessories from China to the local clothing industry. These industries were focused on the markets of Russia and Kazakhstan, access to which after the formation of the Customs Union was difficult. This situation did not add to the popularity of the idea of Eurasian integration. The Kyrgyz authorities themselves are not paying enough attention to working with public opinion. After the CU summit held in Astana in May of 29, which was signed by the road map for Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the union, a mass of publications appeared in the republic promoting the Eurasian integration project. However, then their number decreased again, which did not slow down affecting the mood of the population. As the authors of the report note, “in Kyrgyzstan there is a decline in interest in the CIS region in almost all indicators of the population’s integration orientations, as well as an increase in the indicators of autonomy.”
If in the member countries of the Customs Union 77% of the population expressed an average attitude towards him, in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, who are candidates for joining the CU, they treat him with sympathy - 63%, and in Georgia, Moldova , Azerbaijan and Ukraine, oriented to the West - only 39%.
In general, the division of the republics of the CIS into supporters and opponents of Eurasian integration was formed at the turn of the 1990 and 2000, when the intergovernmental associations of GUUAM, on the one hand, and the CSTO and EurAsEC, on the other, were formed. Membership in these associations was changed only by Uzbekistan, which from 1999 to 2005 was a member of GUUAM, after which it left and joined the CSTO, again leaving its ranks in 2012. However, the membership of the CIS countries among the pro or anti-Russian is determined not so much attitude to Russia of the population, how much the position of the West-oriented political and economic elites. Controlling the media, they formed public opinion in the right direction for themselves. So, the level of vehicle support in Ukraine and Moldova, until recently, was higher than 50%, and only after the start of an active PR campaign for European integration, it began to decline.
It is noteworthy that joining the CU still supports more than half of the population of Georgia (53%), which, after the “five-day” war of 2008 and the final loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, seems to have no particular sympathy for Russia. However, over the past year, the level of approval of Eurasian integration in Georgia has decreased by 6%. About half of the Moldovan population, whose number (49%) is more than twice the share of opponents of Eurasian integration (23%), is positive towards the Customs Union. In Azerbaijan, the main focus of which is Turkey, the already lowest level of support in the CIS in the CIS has decreased from 37 to 22%, and the negative attitude towards it, on the contrary, increased from 53 to 64%.
In terms of its negative attitude towards Eurasian integration, Azerbaijan is two and a half times ahead of Georgia, although it did not have military conflicts with the Russian Federation. One of the main reasons for this, apparently, was the beginning of the process of joining Armenia, which, because of the Karabakh conflict, regards Baku as the main enemy.
The negative image of Armenia is projected on its main military and political ally, Russia.
The sharpest decline in pro-Russian and Eurasian sentiment was in Ukraine, which at the time of the survey (April-May) was in a state of acute confrontation with Russia because of the loss of the Crimea. The support of the idea of joining the CU by residents of the republic for the year decreased from 50 to 31%, and its negative perception increased from 28 to 50%. Such strong shifts in public attitudes are explained by a deep military-political crisis and a massive information campaign aimed at discrediting Eurasian integration. Its main goal is mental-psychological recoding of Ukrainians, whose main national idea is to make Russophobia. The information war against Russia in the Ukrainian media is conducted with the active assistance of the United States and NATO, whose representatives, in conversations with Russian politicians, promised to start it immediately after the annexation of the Crimea.
In economic terms, the people of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, who signed the agreement on Euro-Association, are oriented towards the EU. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are oriented both to the CIS countries and to the outside world, while Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Uzbekistan do not have a clearly defined external orientation. As an object of labor migration, the Russian Federation is of the greatest interest to the citizens of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. Residents of the "Slavic" CIS countries are more interested in temporary work outside of its borders - in the EU countries.
The most attractive country of origin of goods within the former USSR was Russia, which was mentioned from 18 to 55% of respondents. The countries of Central Asia are focused on it most of all, where this indicator ranges from 49 to 55%.
Nevertheless, today Russia is not perceived as an unequivocal economic and scientific-technical leader of the CIS, which has not completed the modernization of its national economic complex.
In political and military-political terms, most of the CIS countries are guided by the neighboring post-Soviet states. The exception is Georgia, focused on the US and the EU, as well as Azerbaijan, which considers Turkey its main ally. A sharp decline in the level of perception of the CIS countries as friendly was recorded in Ukraine, where the positive assessment of the European Union sharply increased (from 36 to 48%). For all this, more than half (53%) of Ukrainians are considered as friendly CIS countries. In general, the population of the former USSR considers the most friendly country to be Russia, which put in the first place 87% of the population of Armenia, 83% from Belarus and 81-86% from the Central Asian republics. In Ukraine, the number of those who consider Russia to be a friendly country has more than doubled over the year (from 54 to 24%), with the result that Belarus has come to the first place. In addition, the share of those who consider the RF a friendly country fell in Moldova (from 72 to 56%) and Kyrgyzstan (from 93 to 81%), which is a member of the CSTO and a candidate to join the Customs Union.
The situation is even more complicated in the cultural and humanitarian sphere, which, unlike politics and macroeconomics, directly affects ordinary people. Over the past two decades, Russia has clearly lost the position of a leading scientific and educational center in the former Soviet Union. Russian education is perceived as competitive only by residents of Central Asian countries, and the dynamics here are also rather negative.
And since Russia is the natural political and geographical center of the CIS, reducing its cultural and humanitarian role can have a disintegrating effect not only on the post-Soviet space, but also on the Customs and Eurasian unions.
It is precisely the various educational projects that are one of the key elements of the policy of “soft power”, which allowed the USA to organize a series of color revolutions in the CIS countries. In the current situation, Russia is forced to urgently seek a vaccine for this virus.
The overall picture drawn by the third wave of the “Integration Barometer” seems contradictory. By the population of most of the CIS countries, Russia is still perceived as a military and political leader of the Commonwealth. However, its economic and cultural positions are assessed far less clearly. In terms of integration, the greatest interest for each other, as shown by survey results, are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. However, Ukraine is increasingly oriented towards the West, and Kazakhstan is becoming increasingly integrated into Eurasian structures. At the same time, the projects of the Customs and Eurasian Economic Unions have an integrating effect on the post-Soviet space, and the Ukrainian crisis has a disintegrating effect. Leaving behind the civil war in Ukraine, the medium and long-term consequences of which are still not completely clear, we can state the further differentiation of the countries of the post-Soviet space. In time, it will most likely lead to the formation of a Eurasian core headed by Russia and a group of "non-aligned" states that will be oriented towards the United States, the European Union, or, like Azerbaijan, major states of the Middle and Near East.
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