Eurasian Economic Commission in action

The EAEC is composed of the Council and the Board. On January 24, Sergey Rumas, Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus, was elected Chairman of the EAEC Council. The Council consists of three deputy prime ministers, which is similar in structure to the current Commission of the Customs Union scheduled to be dissolved on July 1, 2012. The Council's decisions are reached by simple majority vote. The Council has the authority to overturn or revise any decisions of the Board, the Kazakh MFA's press service reports.

The EAEC Board, chaired by Viktor Khristenko of Russia, a standing executive body, held its first meeting on February 1.

Kazakhstan has appointed Daniyal Akhmetov as a member of the Board on Energy and Infrastructure, Timur Suleimenov as member of the Board on Economic and Financial Policies, and Nurlan Aldabergenov as member of the Board on issues of competition and antitrust regulations.

Danial Akhmetov is responsible for energy policy, policy of natural monopolies, transportation, regulation of rail transport service, management of exceptional rates, investigation, decision-making on suspension or cancellation of decisions to change tariffs, and infrastructure.

Timur Suleimenov is responsible for supervising business and investment conditions, intellectual activity enforcement and protection, migration, financial markets, monetary policy, banking, insurance; securities market, enrollment and distribution of customs duties, and tax policies.

The duties of Nurlan Aldabergenov issues on competition policy, enforcement of even competition rules, application of sanctions and fines, suppression of violations of competition, price regulation, state and municipal procurement.

Members of the EAEC Board are full-time officers and are appointed for a term of four years with a renewal option. They will work in the Board in the capacity of international civil servants with a status equivalent to that of European commissioners. It is expected that the EAEC will comprise about 800 representatives from the three countries. They will be stationed in Moscow, although in future, as requested by Kazakhstan, may be moved to Astana.

On July 1, 2012, the EAEC is scheduled to take over and supersede the Customs Union Commission.

The newly established supranational body will act as the Union Ministry. It will exercise its authority to make binding decisions in its own right and convey them to the governments of the CU member countries. Currently, the decisions made by the CU are also binding for the three member-states, but their mandatory nature is based on prior concurrence among the governments.

Provision has also been made for a mechanism to appeal against decisions made by the new commission, i.e. they will take effect after 10 days of "cooling off" to enable the governments of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to change them.

In addition, decisions of the new supranational body will be made by consensus. The votes in the Customs Union Commission are allocated as follows: 57% for Russia, and 21.5% for Belarus and Kazakhstan each. The decision making policy in the newly established EAEC will require a two thirds majority vote only for decisions pertaining to the operational procedures of the Commission. The decisions binding on the national governments of the three member countries will be adopted on the basis of unanimity of all members.

The Agreement on the Establishment of the Eurasian Economic Commission was signed in Moscow on November 18, 2011. Pursuant to this document the EAEC must act as an integrated standing regulatory authority responsible for enabling the operational environment for performance and development of the CU and the SES, as well as providing proposed solutions for economic integration within these unions.