The Evolution of Trade Exchanges Between European Union and the Western Newly Independant States. A Trend Toward Regional Integration?

The process of regionalizaion, inside the broader process of globalizaion, gives way to the formaion of large economic regions inside which one can noice the rapid growth of internal trade lows and eventually the growing importance of economic interdependency. What is the situaion of Russia and the Western New Independent States (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova) regarding the development of the European economic region, which encompasses the UE 25 and almost all its neighbours? Are they on their way to a growing integraion in this region or not? To give some solid elements of answer to these quesions is quite diicult. If one takes into account only the simple value of exchanges between Western NIS and Europe, two conclusions may be drawn: A growing importance of Russia, and CIS as a whole, among the commercial partners of EU. The importance of EU as the first trade partner of a majority of Newly Independent States. The relative decline of EU among the commercial partners of Russia whose external trade has been growing more rapidly with the rest of the world than with EU since the 1990s. In order to qualify the idea of regionalisation and economic integraion of Eastern neighbours of EU, one must also take into account the real intensity of bilateral trade in using another indicator: coeicients of relative bilateral intensity of trade. This indicator is very much relevant in so far as it is influenced neither by the demographic size nor by the economic weight of commercial partners. It confirms the idea that the intensity of trade relations inside the former USSR is sill high, despite a clear decrease since the 1990s, while it is much lower with the EEC and even lower with Western Europe. Such conclusions prevent us from considering Russia and the Western NIS as simple peripheries of EU, especially Russia whose regional political and economic influence has been significantly growing since the beginning of Putin's presidency.