Titelaufnahme

In the circumstances of the overgrowing tensions within the Eastern Neighborhood countries and the war on the Eastern flank of the European Union (EU), the focus on searching for possible economic partnership is moving to Central Asia. After dozens of years of oblivion, the region found itself as the arena of competition among global leaders but also as a battleground for regional leaders – Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The paper starts with the assumption that a key reason for the poorly-designed external economic strategy lies in neglecting the place and role of economic sovereignty as a key driver of regional development. A comparative analysis of the regionalisms offered by the European Union (EU) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) demonstrates that leadership is most effectively exercised with a view to recognising equality in geo-economic positions and respecting sovereign decision-making rights. In this paper, it is argued that underestimating economic sovereignty of five developing economies in Eurasia for multinational corporations (MNCs) would be fatal in the context of hyper-competition between the European Union (EU), Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the regional leadership on the emerging markets.