European union and Russia: their institutional, economic and political relations

Abstract

The dissolution of the Soviet Union at Christmas in 1991 marked the independence of 15 new countries from which Russian Federation is undoubtedly the most important. Indeed, being practically acknowledged as the successor of the Soviet Union and taking its place in world organizations means a lot. In addition, Russia is the ninth most populous and the largest country in the world covering more than one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited area extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe. As a matter of fact it shares land boarders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It also shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. State of Alaska across the Bering Strait. Moreover, Russia is a great world political power with great influence over the post-Soviet countries and it is also a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a member of G20 and the World Trade Organization.