In late 2023 – early 2024, the governing bodies of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) went through a series of changes, including:

• A new Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC).
• An EEC Board reshuffle.
• An EAEU chairmanship change, with Armenia succeeding Russia as chairman of the EAEU bodies for 2024.

This signifies that the EAEU’s governing bodies, including its supreme executive body (the EEC), underwent major personnel changes:

• Key offices went to people who had previously worked within the EEC. This could do much to simplify communication with them as they maintain their competences and established approaches.
• On the other hand, no new faces in the EEC means that the EAEU is becoming less important for the leaders of the EAEU member-states and evidences the intention to preserve the current status quo (without further deepening integration).
• Nonetheless, the EEC retains important competences in technical, customs, tariff and non-tariff regulation, and this ensures that the EEC remains significant for GR communication.
• The changes that were most important for businesses affected only the technical regulation portfolio (a new minister was appointed but the appointee represents the same country as his predecessor, Belarus).
• The customs regulation and non-tariff regulation blocks saw no changes:

New EEC Board members being appointed primarily from among ex-EEC officials is a development that is likely to be continued at the level of EEC department directors and deputy directors. In many respects, it will help to ensure that the Commission retains its current plans.

Additionally, we should mention certain trends in supranational regulation continuity: as noted above, the Minister in charge of Technical Regulation continues to be a representative of Belarus, and the Minister in charge of Industry and the Agro-Industrial Complex continues to be an Armenian representative.

Please find more details in the memo.