Thailand Eurasian Economic Union membership - Russian ruse?

However, this will doubtless surprise international observers, given Thailand's failure at present to regulate its fishing industry, which has led the EU to issue a 'yellow card' that may well be followed by a 'red card' before the end of the year, which will mean the prohibition of fishing imports from Thailand to the EU. International concerns expressed over slave labour and human trafficking in its fishing industry also mean that Thailand's willingness to join the EEU is doubtless motivated by the fact that the country may well be facing EU sanctions soon, and is looking to other trade options beyond the EU. However, whether this can and should be allowed is quite another issue - why should the country be able and allowed to trade when it has thus far not shown willingness to bring its house in order

Russia's RT news service quoted the federation's Trade and Industry Minister Denis Manturov saying that the Eurasian Economic Commission is waiting on Thailand to file its application, which would lead to "concrete discussions" about a free trade zone.

Manturov added after the bilateral cooperation meeting earlier in July that there would be separate decisions on "sensitive" sectors, such as automobiles, as was the case when the trade-zone deal was struck with Vietnam.

In May, Vietnam signed the first free-trade zone agreement between the EEU and a third party.

Manturov said "the ball was now in Bangkok's court". Thailand was said to be preparing the final draft of its proposal.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev previously said his country would like to sign free-trade zone agreements with 40 countries. He added that a possible currency union with other members of the Eurasian Economic Union was also under consideration.

"I suggested to my counterpart [Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha]… to think about the possibility of creating a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union along the same lines as we are about to do with Vietnam,” Medvedev said in an interview with the Thai media corporation Nation.

But Russia's motivations must also be examined - with EU-Russia relations at their lowest point for decades over the Ukraine conflict, it must be asked whether Russia is in fact seeking to expand the EEU with CIS countries in a defiant 'pushback' towards the EU.

At the signing of the founding documents of the EEU, Putin noted the signing marked a new “epoch”. But where the rhetoric crafts the idea of a unified, complementary front, numbers and trajectory present a far bleaker, more strained outlook for the EEU. While the union was never meant as a reimagined Soviet Union, the EEU, with 170 million member-citizens and a combined GDP of $2.7 trillion, is much removed from the neo-imperial project Putin imagined. Instead of presenting another geopolitical “pole” or “link” between Europe and Asia, as Putin claimed in 2011, it seems far likelier the EEU will morph into another diluted post-Soviet assemblage, which is distant from the union’s original proposition.

The EEU plans to offer cross-border stock trading in 2016, Eurasian Economic Commission Minister Timur Suleimenov had said in June.

The EEU was launched this year and is based on the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The economic bloc is designed to ensure the free movement of goods, services, capital and workforce within its borders.

Armenia joined the bloc in 2014 - Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signed a law ratifying Kyrgyzstan's membership in the EEU.