TRADE RELATIONS BETWEEN LITHUANIA AND RUSSIA IN CONTEXT OF INTEGRATION PROCESSES

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to analyze the influence of integration processes on the formation of current Lithuanian-Russian trade relations and, on the basis of the analysis, to formulate insights on their specific features. The first part of the paper deals with the nature of the EU common commercial policy by stating that within the integration group two categories of international economic relations are formed, i.e. internal and external. Internal relations are based on the principles related to free trade, and external relations seek to protect internal market from the effect of third parties, bigger than allowed by WTO, i.e. protectionism. In other words, the countries of integration group are opposed to third parties outside the boundaries of the group. The second part is focused on the fact that Russia’s attitude to European integration processes of the last two decades is negative. That attitude is expressed by Russia’s strategic choice, i.e. closer cooperation with some older EU states rather than with the whole organization. That condition, together with peculiarities of mutual economic exchanges, determines that major changes in the development of EU- Russian trade relations are not to be expected. The third part of the paper offers some insights on Lithuanian – Russian trade relations. Based on the statistic figures and analysis of political documents, peculiar features of these relations are discussed, i.e. insufficient level of cooperation intensity, vulnerability of the relations and uncertainty of their perspective.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.eis.0.8.6848