The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) officially came into existence with the founding treaty signed in Astana on May 29, 2014, and entered into force on January 1, 2015. Ten years later, the Union presented its own economic report card at the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, convened once again in Astana on May 29, 2026. According to the data reported by Kazinform and Xinhua, the picture appears impressive at first glance. The combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the member economies reached 3.02 trillion dollars as of 2025, growing by 16.6 percent compared to 2020. President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev forecasts that the Union’s growth will remain at approximately 2.5 percent in 2026 and 2027.[i] However, the structural reality behind these figures points less to the deepening of integration than to the maturation of a regional architecture of dependency.
In the five-member Union consisting of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan, mutual trade among member countries reached 95 billion dollars in 2025; according to Tokayev’s statement, this figure is expected to exceed 100 billion dollars in 2026. [ii]The fact that mutual trade has doubled since 2015 and that, according to the data of the Eurasian Economic Commission, the share of non-commodity and non-energy products in mutual trade has risen to 76.6 percent[iii] may be interpreted as indicating that the Union is not merely a space for the exchange of raw materials. Nevertheless, the aforementioned 95 billion dollars of intra-union trade corresponds to a relatively limited share within the total foreign trade volume of the member countries; in other words, the breadth of integration is not advancing at the same pace as its depth. According to the data shared at the Fifth Eurasian Economic Forum, industrial production increased by 18.9 percent during the 2021–2025 period, reaching 1.69 trillion dollars, while agricultural production increased by 12.4 percent to 167.5 billion dollars. [iv]Although these figures reflect real growth, they do not alter the fact that a significant portion of this growth stems from the economic mass of a single member, namely Russia.
The Union’s most prominently highlighted achievement lies in the monetary sphere: the share of payments conducted in national currencies in mutual trade among member countries rose to approximately 93 percent in 2025. [v]This rate is presented in official discourse as concrete proof of the dethronement of the dollar. Yet, when its economic content is read more carefully, it becomes apparent that the picture is shaped not around the plurality of “national currencies” but around the dominance of a single currency, namely the ruble. For member economies whose access to SWIFT has been restricted and whose dollar and euro liquidity has narrowed in the face of Western sanctions, the ruble has become not a choice but a necessity. In this respect, the 93 percent figure signifies not the triumph of de-dollarization, but rather the substitution of dependence on the dollar with dependence on the ruble. A logic similar to the transformation of energy corridors into “weaponized interdependence” is being reproduced here in the monetary sphere: within an asymmetric network, the actor occupying the central position transforms this position into a capacity for structural influence. For the smaller members, payment in rubles means the indirect transfer of exchange-rate risk and the burden of Russia’s monetary policy decisions onto their own economies.
The political limits of this structural asymmetry became visible in their clearest form in the spring of 2026. The presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan, through a joint statement issued following the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council on May 29, 2026, called on Armenia to choose between European Union membership and EAEU membership through a referendum. This was followed by Russia’s recalling of its Ambassador to Yerevan for consultations. [vi]According to reports by CGTN and Armenian Public Radio, Prime Minister Pashinyan rejected the call for a referendum; he stated that his country would continue to remain within the Union “calmly and resolutely,” but that they were aware that EU membership and EAEU membership could not be pursued simultaneously. [vii]Armenia’s enactment on April 4, 2025, of the law initiating the process of accession to the EU and the first EU–Armenia summit held in 2026[viii] demonstrate that the Union’s economic attractiveness alone is insufficient to keep a member inside. Economic integration is sustainable to the extent that members voluntarily accept limitations on their foreign policy autonomy; when this consent weakens, the instrument available to the Union shifts from economic incentives to political pressure.
A similar centrifugal tendency can also be observed in the multi-vector external economic policy of Kazakhstan, the Union’s second most powerful economy. While Astana constitutes the institutional backbone of the EAEU on the one hand, it is also positioning itself as an alternative transit hub in China–Europe trade through the Middle Corridor and mobilizing international financing for transportation infrastructure in this direction. This dual posture reveals that EAEU membership, for Astana, is not a dependency but a vector that must be balanced. The Union’s external initiatives are also increasingly taking on the character of an instrument of geopolitical alignment rather than economic integration: the free trade agreement signed with Iran at the end of 2023, the agreement signed with Indonesia in 2025, and the trade frameworks previously established with Vietnam, Singapore, and Serbia exemplify this orientation. The observer status of Cuba, Iran, Moldova, and Uzbekistan draws the geographical map of this geopolitical preference.[ix]
Türkiye is deliberately positioning itself outside this picture. Ankara maintains neither membership nor observer relations with the EAEU; it establishes its economic ties with the region not through the institutional framework of the Union, but through bilateral relations with member countries—particularly Kazakhstan—and through an alternative integration vector such as the Organization of Turkic States. This preference is also consistent with Türkiye’s Middle Corridor strategy: rather than being incorporated into a ruble-centered monetary bloc, it adopts a position that preserves its own negotiating capacity within multilateral transportation and trade networks. From Türkiye’s perspective, the EAEU may be interpreted not so much as a rival or a partner, but as a sphere of economic neighborhood whose relations with its members can be selectively deepened. In conclusion, the tenth-year balance sheet of the EAEU reveals the gap between quantitative magnitudes and structural depth. A combined output exceeding three trillion dollars and a 93 percent share of national currencies create, on paper, the image of advanced integration; however, these figures are the product not so much of a rules-based common institutionalization as of Russia’s economic sphere of attraction and the conditions created by sanctions. The future of the Union will be determined not by how many billions of dollars its mutual trade reaches, but by whether it can transform itself into a rules-based institutional structure that balances the sovereignty concerns of its members and functions independently of the mass of a single actor. As the Armenian example demonstrates, an integration process in which economic incentives cannot replace political consent has begun to test not its depth, but its limits.
[i] “EAEU GDP exceeds 3 trln USD in 2025, up 16.6 pct since 2020”, Xinhua, https://english.news.cn/20260530/54af69943c35443d88ce9ca7ce855450/c.html, (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Avrasya Ekonomik Komisyonu (EEC), Ticaret Birimi Analizi — ham madde dışı ve enerji dışı ürünlerin karşılıklı ticaretteki payı (%76,6). https://eec.eaeunion.org/en/news/, (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
[iv] [iv] “EAEU GDP exceeds 3 trln USD in 2025, up 16.6 pct since 2020”, a.g.e., (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
[v] Ibid.
[vi] “Nikol Pashinyan: Armenia to remain in EAEU amid EU membership debate”, CGTN, https://news.cgtn.com/news/2026-06-02/Nikol-Pashinyan-Armenia-to-remain-in-EAEU-amid-EU-membership-debate-1NE0TI3Fmak/p.html, (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
[vii] Ermenistan Kamu Radyosu (Public Radio of Armenia), 27 Mayıs 2026. (Paşinyan’ın referandum çağrısını reddeden açıklamaları.) https://en.armradio.am/, (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
[viii] “What the First EU–Armenia Summit Means for European Companies”, Special Eurasia, https://www.specialeurasia.com/2026/05/12/eu-armenia-summit-companies/, (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
[ix] ADB Asya Bölgesel Entegrasyon Merkezi (ARIC), Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreements. (AEB’nin İran, Endonezya, Vietnam, Singapur ve Sırbistan ile ticaret çerçeveleri; Küba, İran, Moldova ve Özbekistan’ın gözlemci statüsü.) https://aric.adb.org/fta/eurasian_economic_union, (Date of Access: 19.06.2026).
