TASS-FACTBOX. On October 8, 2024, a meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) will be held in Moscow under the chairmanship of Russia. TASS editors have prepared a material on the formation of the CIS, the goals, structure and areas of activity of the organization.
Creation of the CIS
The Commonwealth of Independent States is a regional intergovernmental organization that currently unites 11 post-Soviet countries (Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine). The Agreement Establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States was signed on December 8, 1991, in the government residence of Viskuli (Belovezhskaya Pushcha, Belarus) by the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, the President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk and the head of the Supreme Council (SC) of Belarus Stanislav Shushkevich. The preamble of the document stated that the USSR as a "subject of international law and a geopolitical reality" ceased to exist from that moment on. On December 10 of the same year, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Councils of Ukraine and Belarus, and on December 12 by Russia. The document emphasized that the agreement would be open to accession to all republics of the former Soviet Union, and to other nations sharing the same goals.
On December 21, 1991, in Almaty (Kazakhstan), the leaders of 11 former Soviet republics (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine) signed the Almaty Declaration on the Goals and Principles of the CIS and the protocol to the agreement of December 8, which confirmed the accords reached in Viskuli, indicating that with the formation of the CIS, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Thus, the process of foundation of the Commonwealth of Independent States was completed. The documents also confirmed the mutual recognition of sovereignty and inviolability of borders, the interaction of the CIS participants on the principle of equality through coordinating institutions. At the same time, it was stated that the Commonwealth is neither a state nor a supranational entity.
On January 22, 1993, the Charter of the CIS, the founding document of the organization, was adopted in Minsk.
On December 3, 1993, Georgia joined the Commonwealth (it withdrew on August 18, 2009). Thus, by the end of 1993, 12 former Soviet republics had joined the CIS. In March 1994, the UN General Assembly granted the CIS an observer status.
Membership in the CIS
Members of the Commonwealth are states that have acceded to the CIS Charter within one year of its adoption. On January 22, 1993, the Commonwealth Charter was signed by Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. On September 24, 1993, Azerbaijan acceded to the Charter, on December 9 of the same year - Georgia, on April 15, 1994 - Moldova. Two states, out of 12, have not ratified the document - Turkmenistan and Ukraine. Countries that have not signed the Charter are not members of the CIS, they are member states of the Commonwealth. At the same time, no CIS document distinguishes between the status of members and participants of the Commonwealth. Turkmenistan was a member state in 1991-2005. On August 26, 2005, at the summit in Kazan, the CIS heads of state supported the request of the President of Turkmenistan to recognize the republic’s special status as an associate member of the Commonwealth. This status is granted to a state that wishes to participate only in certain types of the organization’s activities.
Ukraine has retained the status of a CIS member state since 1991. In 2014, there were repeated reports about the possibility of Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth, but the country did not submit an official application. In May 2018, Ukraine decided to stop participating in the CIS coordinating councils, and in August of the same year, it withdrew its representatives at the organization’s statutory bodies. Starting in 2019, Ukraine withdrew from a number of agreements in force within the Commonwealth.
Moldova also effectively suspended its work in key CIS bodies after Maia Sandu from the pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity came to power in December 2020.
Goals of the Commonwealth
According to its Charter, the CIS served towards "the development and strengthening of friendship, good neighborliness, inter-ethnic accord, trust, mutual understanding, and cooperation between member-states."
The Commonwealth is not a state and has no supranational powers. All its member states are independent subjects of international law.
The key goals of the CIS are cooperation in political, economic, social, cultural and other areas, creation of a common economic space, ensuring human rights and freedoms, peace and security, combating organized crime, cooperation in the field of defense policy and protection of external borders, mutual legal assistance, etc.
The fundamental documents outlining the long-term priorities of the common future of the CIS countries are the Concept of Further Development of the Commonwealth of Independent States in a new version dated December 18, 2020 and the CIS Economic Development Strategy for the period until 2030, approved by the decision of the CIS Council of Heads of Government dated May 29, 2020.
Structure and governing bodies
Interaction between countries within the CIS is carried out through coordinating institutions: the Council of Heads of State, the Council of Heads of Government, the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Interparliamentary Assembly, the Executive Committee, the Anti-Terrorism Center, the Economic Council, etc. There are also about 70 inter-sectoral and interstate bodies dealing with issues in various areas of cooperation.
Council of Heads of States
The supreme body of the CIS is the Council of Heads of State, in which all 11 countries are represented. The Council determines the development strategy of the Commonwealth and solves conceptual and strategic problems. The chairmanship of the Council is held by each state in turn on a rotational basis for a period of one year. Since January 1, 2024, Russia has held the chairmanship of the CIS.
Meetings of the leaders of the countries have been held since 1991. As a rule, these summits take place twice a year: regular and informal (without an official agenda and usually without signing final documents). In addition, an extraordinary summit of the organization can be convened at the request of a member state of the Commonwealth. In total, 73 summits, including 22 informal summits, have been held over the years of the CIS existence.
The Council of Heads of Government
The CIS Council of Heads of Government coordinates cooperation between the executive authorities in economic, social and other spheres, adopts joint programs for the development of industry, agriculture and other sectors of the economy, etc. The Council meets twice a year and may convene extraordinary meetings at the initiative of the government of one CIS state.
CIS Interparliamentary Assembly
The Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member Nations (IPA CIS) was established on the basis of the Almaty Agreement signed on March 27, 1992 by the heads of parliaments of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In 1993-1995, Azerbaijan, Georgia (withdrew from the IPA CIS agreement in 2009) and Moldova (withdrew in 2024) joined the assembly, followed by Ukraine in 1999 (withdrew in 2023).
The Assembly consists of parliamentary delegations of the member states.
Meetings of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States take place twice yearly. The organization of the activities of the Assembly is entrusted to the IPA Council, consisting of the heads of parliamentary delegations. Since November 2011, it has been headed by Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko.
CIS Executive Committee
The CIS Executive Committee is a single permanent executive, administrative and coordinating body. It ensures the work of the Council of Heads of State, the Council of Heads of Government, the Council of Foreign Ministers and the Economic Council, and is also engaged in "working out proposals on the Commonwealth’s strategy, legal development of documents, analysis of the implementation of decisions, agreements," etc. Since October 2007, the Executive Committee has been headed by Sergey Lebedev (since 2023 - the General Secretary of the CIS). The headquarters of the Executive Committee is in Minsk, and the branch is in Moscow.
Economy
The overall development of the economic sphere in the Commonwealth is defined by the Economic Development Strategy, calculated until 2030.
The priority of economic cooperation is the formation of a free trade zone (FTA). In October 2011, the new free trade agreement was signed by eight CIS prime ministers (Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Ukraine) at a meeting in St. Petersburg. The document replaced the FTA agreement of April 15, 1994 and more than a hundred previously valid bilateral agreements and arrangements. In December 2013, Uzbekistan became the ninth member of the agreement (under special terms). On December 16, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending the CIS Free Trade Zone Agreement with respect to Ukraine from January 1, 2016 "due to exceptional circumstances affecting the interests and economic security of Russia and requiring urgent measures."
On June 8, 2023, in Sochi an Agreement on Free Trade in Services, Establishment, Activities and Investment was signed following a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government.
Military cooperation and security
The defining political decisions taken by the CIS leaders in different years were the commitment to non-use of force against the CIS countries, the concept of conflict prevention and resolution on in the territory of the Commonwealth, and others. Agreements were signed on strategic nuclear forces, on border troops, on the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces, etc. The Joint CIS Air Defense System was created on the basis of an agreement signed on February 10, 1995 in Almaty. The parties to the agreement are Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Nowadays the forces and means of the Joint CIS Air Defense System include about 20 aviation units, over 50 units of anti-aircraft missile and radiotechnical forces, about 10 air defense brigades. The Joint CIS Air Defense System also includes electronic warfare units. Since 1998, joint tactical exercises of the system "Combat Commonwealth" have been regularly held, the last one took place in September 2023. The main goals of the development of military cooperation are reflected in the Concept of CIS Military Cooperation until 2025 (approved on December 18, 2020). According to the document, the priority areas of cooperation between the CIS countries include "military, military-political, military-technical and military-humanitarian spheres, counteraction to international terrorism and other modern challenges and threats of a military nature, military education, training of military personnel and development of military science and peacekeeping activities, social and legal sphere."
The body coordinating anti-terrorist activities is the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center (ATC), was established in 2000. It forms a data bank on international terrorist and extremist organizations and their leaders, on the trends of the spread of international terrorism and extremism, on non-governmental structures and individuals providing support to international terrorists. The Center participates in the preparation and conduct of operational-search measures, operations to combat international terrorism, as well as in the search for individuals who have committed terrorist crimes. Since 2001, joint anti-terrorist exercises have been conducted under the auspices of the ATC.
Statistics
According to the CIS Economic Development Strategy for the period up to 2030, the Commonwealth states currently covers an area of more than 22 million square kilometers (16% of the world’s territory) with an estimated population of about 286 million people (3.8% of the world’s population). The mineral and raw material potential of the CIS includes almost all types of minerals. The CIS countries occupy one of the first places in the world in terms of explored resources of gas, oil, coal, iron and manganese ore, many non-ferrous metals, potassium salts, and others. The CIS states account for almost 30% of the world’s reserves of natural gas and coal, 20% of oil, 36% of uranium, 20% of gold, 13% of cropland, etc.