Parallels and Divergences of Integration in Ukraine and Belarus

Abstract

The past century was in many respects an exceptional one for the European continent. Not only was it scarred by two World Wars, but it was at the same time marked by several economic and political integration processes. Some of these processes were democratic and economically motivated, whereas others were considered totalitarian and ideologically motivated. The twenty-first century is seeing a continuation of integrational processes. The EU’s most recent enlargement has both strengthened and weakened the European Union. In Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States persists as a looser structure of post-Soviet states. It is often claimed that CIS integration mirrors the EU example. It is therefore interesting to look whether ‘parallels of integration’ really exist between the European Union and the integration initiatives among the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Second, the countries ‘in between’ deserve some attention as well. Both members of the CIS, Belarus and Ukraine simultaneously find themselves at the border of an enlarged Europe, and are often labelled ‘outsider states’. This chapter intends to assess divergent institutional developments and parallels of integration in Ukraine and Belarus after 1991.

‘When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.’

(Anaïs Nin)