Economic Interests Vs Values: The Lessons (un)Learned from the EU and EAU

The first fifteen years of the 21st millenium were signified by anxious changes on the European space: economic crisis, desintagration trends and the launched contested project of the Eurasian Economic Union. Being based on the background of three core states – Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan – several regional organizations have been arranged and merged. This process was ornamented by a set of political steps to enlarge the integration impetus. This Union is considered as a project, which was initiated in a part as a mirror reflection of the well-known and well-developed European Union and a symbolic threshold on the way toward the EU enlargement. 

As the EU was formed by the common memory about the Second World War with intention to prevent the situation of disintegration, standing at the frontier of the Warsaw Pact, and as a signal of the bipolar order. The new wave of integration of new European states in 1990s has been directed by the memory of being in the Warsaw Pact. So the EU is one of the first examples of consolidation and expansion in the name of economic prosperity, public good and sustainable development. While interested in the analysis of the comparing integration projects it is also relevant to consider the tensions in relations of the EU and EAEU, which have deep roots in the hidden conflict between memory and economic security. 

Facing the new challenges for both integration projects it is important to notice the coherence of value dicussions and economic progress.