Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Содружество Независимых Государств (СНГ) Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv (SNG)
Flag
Administrative center		Minsk
Largest city		Moscow
Official Language		Russian
Membership		10 members  Armenia  Azerbaijan  Belarus1  Kazakhstan  Kyrgyzstan  Moldova  Russia1  Tajikistan  Turkmenistan2, 3  Uzbekistan 1 participating  Ukraine1, 2
Government		Commonwealth
-	Executive Secretary	Sergei Lebedev
-	Presidency	Russia
Establishment		21 December 1991
-	CST	15 May 1992
-	CISFTA signed	1994[1]
-	CISFTA established	By end of 2010[2]
Area
-	Total	22,100,843 km2  8,533,183 sq mi
Population
-	2008 estimate	276,917,629
-	Density	12.53/km2  32.5/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2007 estimate
-	Total	$2,906.944 billion
-	Per capita	$10,498
GDP (nominal)		2007 estimate
-	Total	$1,691.861 billion
-	Per capita	$6,110
Currency		10 Armenian dram Azerbaijani manat Belarusian ruble Kazakhstani tenge Kyrgyzstani som Moldovan leu Russian ruble Tajikistani somoni Turkmenistani manat Uzbekistani som +1 Ukrainian hryvnia
Time zone		(UTC+2 to +12)
Website http://www.cis.minsk.by/
1	Founding countries
2	Has not ratified the charter
3	Associate member
4	Georgia was an official member from 1994 to 2009

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS; Russian: Содружество Независимых Государств, СНГ, tr. Sodruzhestvo Nezavisimykh Gosudarstv, SNG) is a regional organization whose participating countries are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The CIS is a loose association of states and in no way comparable to a federation, confederation or supranational union such as the European Union. It is more comparable to the Commonwealth of Nations. Although the CIS has few supranational powers, it is aimed at being more than a purely symbolic organization, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realm of trade, finance, lawmaking, and security. It has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention. Some of the members of the CIS have established the Eurasian Economic Community with the aim of creating a full-fledged common market.

History[link]

The organization was founded on 8 December 1991 by the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine, when the leaders of the three countries met in the Belovezhskaya Pushcha Natural Reserve, about 50 km (30 miles) north of Brest in Belarus and signed a Creation Agreement (Russian: Соглашение, Soglasheniye) on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the creation of CIS as a successor entity to the USSR.^[3] At the same time they announced that the new alliance would be open to all republics of the former Soviet Union, as well as other nations sharing the same goals. The CIS charter stated that all the members were sovereign and independent nations and thereby effectively abolished the Soviet Union.

On 21 December 1991, the leaders of eight additional former Soviet Republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – signed the Alma-Ata Protocol and joined the CIS, thus bringing the number of participating countries to 11.^[4] Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993.^[5] As of that time, 12 of the 15 former Soviet Republics participated in the CIS. Three former Soviet Republics, the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, chose not to join.

Between the years of 2003 and 2005, three CIS member states experienced a change of government in a series of colour revolutions: Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown in Georgia, Viktor Yushchenko was elected in Ukraine, and, lastly, Askar Akayev was toppled in Kyrgyzstan. In February 2006, Georgia officially withdrew from the Council of Defense Ministers, with the statement that "Georgia has taken a course to join NATO and it cannot be part of two military structures simultaneously",^[6][7] but it remained a full member of the CIS until August 2009, one year after officially withdrawing in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 South Ossetia war. In March 2007, Igor Ivanov, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, expressed his doubts concerning the usefulness of CIS, emphasizing that the Eurasian Economic Community was becoming a more competent organization to unify the biggest countries of the CIS.^[8] Following the withdrawal of Georgia, the presidents of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan skipped the October 2009 meeting of the CIS.^[9]

In May 2009 the six countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine joined the Eastern Partnership, a project which was initiated by the European Union (EU).

Membership[link]

There are 10 member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, when the CIS Charter (Russian: Устав, Ustav) was adopted.^[10] The charter formalized the concept of membership: a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter (sec. 2, art. 7). Turkmenistan has not ratified the charter and changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognized international neutrality status.^[11][12] Although Ukraine was one of the three founding countries and ratified the Creation Agreement in December 1991, Ukraine did not choose to ratify the CIS Charter and thus does not regard itself as a member of the CIS.^[5][13]

Country	Signed	Ratified	Charter ratified	Membership status
Armenia	21 December 1991	1992-02-18	1994-03-16	official member
Azerbaijan	21 December 1991	1993-09-24	1993-12-14	official member
Belarus	8 December 1991	1991-12-10	1994-01-18	official member
Kazakhstan	21 December 1991	1991-12-23	1994-04-20	official member
Kyrgyzstan	21 December 1991	1992-03-06	1994-04-12	official member
Moldova	21 December 1991	1994-04-08	1994-06-27	official member
Russia	8 December 1991	1991-12-12	1993-07-20	official member
Tajikistan	21 December 1991	1993-06-26	1993-08-04	official member
Turkmenistan	21 December 1991	1991-12-26	Not ratified	unofficial associate member
Ukraine	8 December 1991	1991-12-10	Not ratified	de facto participating; officially not a member
Uzbekistan	21 December 1991	1992-04-01	1994-02-09	official member

Former member states[link]

Country	Signed	Ratified	Charter ratified	Withdrawn	Effective
Georgia	—	3 December 1993	19 April 1994	18 August 2008	17 August 2009

Leadership[link]

Executive Secretaries of CIS[link]

Meeting of CIS leaders in Bishkek in 2008

Name	Country	Term
Ivan Korotchenya	Belarus	26 December 1991 - 29 April 1998
Boris Berezovsky	Russia	29 April 1998 - 4 March 1999
Ivan Korotchenya	Belarus	4 March - 2 April 1999
Yury Yarov	Russia	2 April 1999 - 14 June 2004
Vladimir Rushailo	Russia	14 June 2004 - 5 October 2007
Sergei Lebedev	Russia	since 5 October 2007

Military structures[link]

The CIS Charter establishes the Council of Ministers of Defense, which is vested with the task of coordinating military cooperation of the CIS member states. To this end, the Council develops conceptual approaches to the questions of military and defense policy of the CIS member states; develops proposals aimed to prevent armed conflicts on the territory of the member states or with their participation; gives expert opinions on draft treaties and agreements related to the questions of defense and military developments; issues related suggestions and proposals to the attention of the CIS Council of the Heads of State. Also important is the Council's work on approximation of the legal acts in the area of defense and military development.

An important manifestation of integration processes in the area of military and defense collaboration of the CIS member states is the creation, in 1995, of the joint CIS Air Defense System. Over the years, the military personnel of the joint CIS Air Defense System grew twofold along the western, European border of the CIS, and by 1.5 times, on its southern borders. ^[14]

When Boris Yeltsin became Russian Defence Minister on 7 May 1992, Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, the man appointed as Commander-in-Chief of the CIS Armed Forces, and his staff, were ejected from the MOD and General Staff buildings and given offices in the former Warsaw Pact Headquarters at 41 Leningradsky Prospekt^[15] on the northern outskirts of Moscow.^[16] Shaposhnikov resigned in June 1993.

In December 1993, the CIS Armed Forces Headquarters was abolished.^[17] Instead, 'the CIS Council of Defence Ministers created a CIS Military Cooperation Coordination Headquarters (MCCH) in Moscow, with 50 per cent of the funding provided by Russia.'^[18] General Viktor Samsonov was appointed as Chief of Staff.

The chiefs of the CIS general staffs have spoken in favor of integrating their national armed forces.^[19]

Associated organizations[link]

Free trade area (CISFTA)[link]

In 1994, the CIS countries agreed to create a free trade area, but the agreements were never signed, so in 2009 a new agreement was achieved to create an FTA by the beginning of 2011.^[20] The 1994 agreement would have covered all twelve then CIS members except Turkmenistan.^[21] In October 2011, the new free trade agreement was finally achieved and then signed by eight of the eleven CIS states; Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine at a meeting in St. Petersburg. An agreement was also signed by the CIS prime ministers on the basic principles of currency regulation and currency controls in the CIS at the same meeting.^[22] The only CIS states not to sign up to the free trade agreement were Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, which will consider signing the agreement later and had requested few weeks to consider the agreement. The agreement itself had been worked out in May 2011 but the signing had been delayed in order to allow for the resolution of disputes by some Asian members of the CIS.^[23] The free trade agreement will eliminate export and import duties on a number of goods but also contains a number of exemptions that will ultimately be phased out.^[24] However, corruption and bureaucracy are serious problems for trade in CIS countries.^[25]

Eurasian Economic Community[link]

The Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC or EAEC) originated from a customs union between Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan on the 29 March 1996.^[26] It was named the EAEC on 10 October 2000^[27] when Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan signed the treaty. EurAsEC was formally created when the treaty was finally ratified by all five member states in May 2001. Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine hold observer status. EurAsEC is working on establishing a common energy market and exploring the more efficient use of water in central Asia.

Organization of Central Asian Cooperation[link]

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan formed the OCAC in 1991 as Central Asian Commonwealth (CAC). The organization continued in 1994 as the Central Asian Economic Union (CAEU), in which Tajikistan and Turkmenistan did not participate. In 1998 it became the Central Asian Economic Cooperation (CAEC), which marked the return of Tajikistan. On 28 February 2002 it was renamed to its current name. Russia joined on 28 May 2004.^[28] On 7 October 2005 it was decided between the member states that Uzbekistan will join^[29] the Eurasian Economic Community and that the organizations will merge.^[30] The organizations joined on 25 January 2006. It is not clear what will happen to the status of current CACO observers that are not observers to EurAsEC (Georgia and Turkey).

Common Economic Space[link]

After discussion about the creation of a common economic space between the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, agreement in principle about the creation of this space was announced after a meeting in the Moscow suburb of Novo-Ogarevo on 23 February 2003. The Common Economic Space would involve a supranational commission on trade and tariffs that would be based in Kiev, would initially be headed by a representative of Kazakhstan, and would not be subordinate to the governments of the four nations. The ultimate goal would be a regional organisation that would be open for other countries to join as well, and could eventually lead even to a single currency.

On 22 May 2003 The Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) voted 266 votes in favour and 51 against the joint economic space. However, most believe that Viktor Yushchenko's victory in the Ukrainian presidential election of 2004 was a significant blow against the project: Yushchenko has shown renewed interest in Ukrainian membership in the European Union, and such membership would be incompatible with the envisioned common economic space. Yushchenko's successor Viktor Yanukovych stated on April 27, 2010 "Ukraine's entry into the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan is not possible today, since the economic principles and the laws of the WTO do not allow it, we develop our policy in accordance with WTO principles".^[31] Ukraine is a WTO member.^[31]

A Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia was thus created in 2010,^[32] with a single market envisioned for 2012.^[33]

Collective Security Treaty Organisation[link]

The logo of the CSTO.

  CSTO members

  GUAM members

  Other CIS members

The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) (Russian: Организация Договора о Коллективной Безопасности) or simply the Tashkent Treaty (Russian: Ташкентский договор) first began as the CIS Collective Security Treaty^[34] which was signed on 15 May 1992, by Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russian Federation, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, in the city of Tashkent. Azerbaijan signed the treaty on 24 September 1993, Georgia on 9 December 1993 and Belarus on 31 December 1993. The treaty came into effect on 20 April 1994.

The CST was set to last for a 5-year period unless extended. On 2 April 1999, only six members of the CSTO signed a protocol renewing the treaty for another five year period, while Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan refused to sign, and withdrew from the treaty instead; together with Moldova and Ukraine, formed a non-aligned, more pro-Western pro-US group known as the "GUAM" (Georgia, Uzbekistan / Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova). The organization was named CSTO on 7 October 2002 in Tashkent. Nikolai Bordyuzha was appointed secretary general of the new organization. During 2005, the CSTO partners conducted some common military exercises. In 2005, Uzbekistan withdrew from GUAM, and on 23 June 2006, Uzbekistan became a full participant in the CSTO and its membership was formally ratified by its parliament on 28 March 2008.^[35] The CSTO is an observer organization at the United Nations General Assembly.

The charter reaffirmed the desire of all participating states to abstain from the use or threat of force. Signatories would not be able to join other military alliances or other groups of states, while aggression against one signatory would be perceived as an aggression against all. To this end, the CSTO holds yearly military command exercises for the CSTO nations to have an opportunity to improve inter-organization cooperation. The largest-scale CSTO military exercise held to date were the "Rubezh 2008" exercises hosted in Armenia where a combined total of 4,000 troops from all 7 constituent CSTO member countries conducted operative, strategic, and tactical training with an emphasis towards furthering efficiency of the collective security element of the CSTO partnership.^[36]

In May 2007 the CSTO secretary-general Nikolai Bordyuzha suggested Iran could join the CSTO saying, "The CSTO is an open organization. If Iran applies in accordance with our charter, we will consider the application."^[37] If Iran joined, it would be the first state outside the former Soviet Union to become a member of the organization.

On 6 October 2007, CSTO members agreed to a major expansion of the organization which would create a CSTO peacekeeping force that could deploy under a U.N. mandate or without one in its member states. The expansion would also allow all members to purchase Russian weapons at the same price as Russia.^[38] CSTO signed an agreement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in the Tajik capital Dushanbe, to broaden cooperation on issues such as security, crime, and drug trafficking.^[39]

On 29 August 2008, Russia announced it would seek CSTO recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, three days after Russia officially recognized both.^[40] On 5 September 2008, Armenia assumed the rotating CSTO presidency during a CSTO meeting in Moscow, Russia.^[41]

In October 2009 Ukraine refused permission for the CIS Anti-Terrorist Center to hold anti-terrorist exercises on its territory because Ukraine's constitution bans foreign military units from operating on its territory.^[42]

The largest military exercises ever held by the CSTO, involving up to 12,000 troops were conducted between September 19 and 27, 2011 to raise preparedness and co-ordination in Arab Spring style anti-destabilization techniques.^[43]

Other activities[link]

Controversial election observation mission[link]

The CIS Election Monitoring Organization (Russian: Миссия наблюдателей от СНГ на выборах) is an election monitoring body that was formed in October 2002, following a Commonwealth of Independent States heads of states meeting which adopted the Convention on the Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights, and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The CIS-EMO has been sending election observers to member countries of the CIS since this time; they approved many elections which have been heavily criticised by independent observers.^[44]

• The democratic nature of the final round of the Ukrainian presidential election, 2004 which followed the Orange Revolution and brought into power the former opposition, was questioned by the CIS while the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) found no significant problems. This was the first time ever that the CIS observation teams challenged the validity of an election, saying that it should be considered illegitimate. On 15 March 2005, the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency quoted Dmytro Svystkov (a spokesman of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry) that Ukraine has suspended its participation in the CIS election monitoring organization.
• The CIS praised the Uzbekistan parliamentary elections, 2005 as "legitimate, free and transparent" while the OSCE had referred to the Uzbek elections as having fallen "significantly short of OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections".^[45][46]
• Moldovan authorities refused to invite CIS observers in the Moldovan parliamentary elections, 2005, an action Russia criticized. Many dozens such observers from Belarus and Russia were stopped from reaching Moldova.^[47]
• CIS observers monitored the Tajikistan parliamentary elections, 2005 and in the end declared them "legal, free and transparent." The same elections were pronounced by the OSCE to have failed international standards for democratic elections.
• Soon after CIS observers hailed the Kyrgyz parliamentary elections of 2005 as "well-organized, free, and fair", a large-scale and often violent demonstrations broke out throughout the country protesting what the opposition called a rigged parliamentary election. In contrast the OSCE reported that the elections fell short of international standards in many areas.^[48]
• International observers of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly stated the 2010 local elections in Ukraine were organised well.^[49] While the Council of Europe uncovered a number of problems in relation to a new electorate law approved just prior to the elections^[49] and the Obama administration criticized the conduct of the elections, saying they "did not meet standards for openness and fairness".^[50][51]

Inter-Parliamentary Assembly[link]

The Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, established in March 1995, is a consultative parliamentary wing of the CIS created to discuss problems of parliamentary cooperation.^[52] The Assembly will hold its 32nd Plenary meeting in Saint Petersburg on 14 May 2009. Ukraine participates, but Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan do not participate.^[53]

Russian language status[link]

Russia has been urging that the Russian language receives official status in all of the CIS member states. So far Russian is an official language in only four of these states: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Russian is also considered an official language in the region of Transnistria, and the autonomous region of Gagauzia in Moldova. Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-supported presidential candidate in the controversial 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, declared his intention to make Russian an official second language of Ukraine. However, Viktor Yushchenko, the winner, did not do so. After his early 2010 election as President Yanukovych stated (on March 9, 2010) that "Ukraine will continue to promote the Ukrainian language as its only state language".^[54]

Sports events[link]

At the time of the Soviet Union's dissolution in December 1991, its sports teams had been invited to or qualified for various 1992 sports events. A joint CIS team took its place in some of these. The "Unified Team" competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics and 1992 Summer Olympics, and a CIS association football team competed in UEFA Euro 1992. Since then, CIS members have each competed separately in international sport.

Economic data[link]

The data is taken from the UN Statistics Division.

See also[link]

• Regional organisations in the Post-Soviet space

References[link]