EAEU’s Cooperation in Fighting Terrorism and Money Laundering
EAEU’s Cooperation in Fighting Terrorism and Money Laundering
On 26th January 2018, on the meeting of the Eurasian Economic Commission, an agreement was made on mutual cooperation in counteracting money laundering and terrorist financing. The project will allow the member states to exchange information on any movements of finance across the borders of the customs union members, by creating a common database of money flows. The database will be formed on the basis of data acquired from passengers’ customs declaration and will be run by a specially designed organ. The organ will be formed in each member state, which will be responsible for processing the data and sharing it.
From this article, we can make several points about the EAEU’s policymaking, and new organ formation. The project is similar to the European Union’s counter-terrorism strategy, adopted by the European Council in 2005[1]. It, however, has its own principles, and, as actors are different, the individual interests are also different. In EAEU’s case, the database is common; however, each country will have its own responsible organ. This is an example of intergovernmental decision-making, when each individual actor contributes to the common decision. Moreover, this policy can be described as a “coordinated competence” between national governments and the EAEU[2]. If we take an example from the EU, in coordinated competences, the states “coordinate their domestic policies at the EU level, because of the effect on each other of conducting separate policies”[3]. The concept is applicable to our case, as each member state of the EAEU, prior to the decision, had its own regulatory measures on preventing terrorism, but still cooperated in order to reach a better result, and to avoid the spillover effect on each of the members.
From the overall picture, we can conclude, that this particular policy can be explained by “policy community” concept by Richardson[4]. Even though the EAEU member states differ in their market size, resources, and power, they were on equal levels of interactions in this case. When agreeing on the anti-terrorism and anti-laundering policy, the states were motivated by the same incentives, shared the same views, and showed a high level of integration, which is consistent with the policy community approach.
References:
(Main Article) (2018, January 26) Итоги Совета ЕЭК 26 января. (Results of the Eurasian Economic Commission Meeting on January 26th). Retrieved from http://eec.eaeunion.org/ru/nae/news/Pages/26-01-2018-2.aspx
Bache, I., George, S., and Bulmer, S. (2011) Theories of EU Governance, in Politics in the European Union. Oxford University Press.
Hix, S. and Hoyland, B. (2011) Introduction: Explaining the EU Political System, in The Political System of the European Union, 3rd edition, Palgrave Macmillan.
EU Counter-Terrorism strategy. Retrieved from http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/fight-against-terrorism/eu-strategy/
[1] EU Counter-Terrorism strategy
[2] Hix, Hoyland. “Introduction: Explaining the EU Political System”, p. 3.
[3] Hix, Hoyland. “Introduction: Explaining the EU Political System”, p. 4, box 1.2.
[4] Bache, George, Bulmer. “Theories of EU Governance”, p. 28.