Executive secretary of the Customs Union (KTS) Sergei Glazyev may lose his job at the organization in July 2012. He has not been offered to join the Eurasian Economic Commission as the representative of the Russian Federation. The KTS officials now face assessment of their performance in a view of upcoming reform of the KTS. Glazyev is blamed for “the absence of ideological standpoint and problems in managing the organization”. The officials from the RF ministries will execute his duties, according to the sources.

 

The governments of the countries of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC) look set to form new governing bodies for the EurAsEC, Kommersant reported. Current secretariat of the KTS is not considered as a base for forming the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the organ conceived to have the same functions as the European Commission in the EU, according to the reports. Andrei Slepnev, deputy minister of economy, told Kommersant that the KTS secretariat would function side by side with the EEC, which was a draft variant of the reform. All officials of the KTS who pass the assessment will get jobs in the EEC or will be given preferences. Slepnev added that the problem was that the KTS secretariat deals mainly with paperwork, whereas “the EEC will have ideological function”.     

 

Ideologists for the EEC could be looked for in the RF ministries, Slepnev said.

 

An unnamed source close to the KTS secretariat said that Sergei Glazyev had not received a job offer in the EEC yet. Neither Glazyev, nor the KTS were unavailable for comments. A source in the Russian government told Kommersant that each member of the KTS - Russia, Belorus and Kazakhstan - will nominate their candidates. The candidates from the Russian side have not been nominated yet. “Most probably the Russian Federation will nominate trade minister Viktor Khristenko and two other candidates. The chances of Sergei Glazyev are very low indeed,” the source told Kommersant.

 

After the prime ministers of EuroAsEC signed the treaty on the establishment of the EEC in October 2011, the tensions grew over the head of the KTS. According to the information of Kommersant, Sergei Glazyev considered the document “raw” and did everything to hinder its signing. The document disappeared shortly before the beginning of the meeting of the prime ministers, and it was reprinted and put in the folders in the course of the meeting at the request of the delegations. According to the official version, it was a law level of the meeting organization that led to the incident. A member of the Russian delegation described Sergei Glazyev’s actions as sabotage and the attempt to torpedo the negotiations. Glazyev has been strongly against further integration of the former Soviet republics and the reform of the KTS in recent months.  

 

Other members of the KTS say about the difference of opinions. They believe that the EEC and the KTS will cooperate with each other and consider the EEC, not the KTS, as a temporary body. “Frankly speaking the KTS secretariat in the present form can continue working effectively on drafting a legal basis for EurAsEC Common Economic Space. The EEC is aimed at Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and maybe Ukraine, so that it can alleviate their joining to the KTS,” a source said.

 

The outcome of the struggle for the post of the head of the EEC will be clear in the next week. The leaders of Russia, Belorus and Kazakhstan in the middle of November will sign another treaty on the EEC. The structure of the EEC will have become clear by that time. Trade minister Viktor Khristenko, first vice-president Igor Shuvalov and their counterparts in Belorus and Kazakhstan, currently discusses the structure of the future commission. The KTS does not take part in this work. Sergei Glazyev may be nominated from either Kazakhstan or Belorus. Earlier Glazyev praised the way the government of Belorus handled with the crisis. His political standpoint is more close to that of president of Belorus Aleksandr Lukoshenko than to the RF government.

  

Kommersant