Anait Smbatyan,

Professor,

Department of International Law,

Russian Foreign Trade Academy,

Ministry of the Economic Development of the Russian Federation

In the current international environment, we are witnessing unprecedented economic pressure, massive application of illegal unilateral restrictive measures (the so called "sanctions"), disruption of traditional trade ties and supply chains. We live in an era when the old formats and instruments of economic cooperation that have developed over many decades are becoming increasingly inadequate to the challenges that we face.

With this background, it becomes clear that one of the key challenges today is building a new architecture of foreign trade relations through the creation of new systems and new formats of international partnerships in various areas of trade and economic cooperation. Many examples from the world practice indicate that there is no sense to create one or even several typical models of international trade cooperation since each of them will contain a significant proportion of idle or potentially harmful elements. Due to their structural limitations, rigid integration organizations such as free trade areas, customs and economic unions fail to envisage highly flexible forms of interaction involving individual states, their regional groups, individual industries and companies. In addition, such phenomena as unification, harmonization and the creation of mandatory standards and rules are becoming less relevant.

In the current political and economic conditions, trade cooperation requires in each specific case the use of unique tools and solutions that meet the goals and objectives to be achieved. It also follows from this that trade cooperation projects should proceed from the ground-up and not top-down. Otherwise, specific problems either are not identified or buried in large-scale ideas. More than that, cooperation cannot be limited to increasing trade and investment only. Social aspects of trade and economic relations come to the fore. Among them are first of all, ensuring food and energy security, fair conditions for international technology transfer, availability of essential products for all people. Traditional commercial instruments of trade regulation are not able to solve these problems. We are facing fundamentally new challenges that require fundamentally new solutions and corresponding tools.

With all these in mind, the Russian initiative to form the “Greater Eurasian Partnership” takes on a special significance.