Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Less than a month from now, Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus will launch the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) whose founding treaty was signed by their presidents this May in Astana. They are further expected to be joined in the first weeks of January by another two states, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, both of which have spent the past few years preparing for membership by harmonizing their legislation.

Although the EEU launch is widely portrayed in the Russian media as a way for Moscow to reassert its political and economic influence in the former Soviet Union states, Russia's deteriorating economic situation inspires little enthusiasm.

According to the World Bank, Russian GDP should grow 0.7 percent this year but will most likely show no growth at all because of the falling oil price and the lingering impact of the Western sanctions over Ukraine.

While the Russian Ministry of Economic Development largely agrees with the World Bank's 2014 forecast, it gloomily predicts that GDP will contract by 0.8 percent next year as more sanctions are currently being considered by the West.

Meanwhile, net capital flight from Russia is set to climb up to $130 billion, as compared to earlier forecasts of $100 billion from the government and $90 billion from the Central Bank. In 2013 it stood at only $62.7 billion and $56.8 billion in 2012, but has significantly intensified since the spring of 2014 against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis.

Moreover, the plunging ruble, which has lost over a third of its value against the dollar since the start of the year, is another serious headache for Russia's partners within the EEU. In Central Asia, both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan face diminished growth prospects, with the former's economy set to grow by a meager 4 percent in 2014, after 6 percent last year. As for Kyrgyzstan, its economy grew in 2013 at a spectacular rate of 10.5 percent, but is unlikely to expand this year further than 3 percent owing to poor results in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

As Kazakhstan's chief trading partner, Russia is increasingly viewed in Astana as a source of ever-growing macroeconomic instability. As far as some estimates go, the weak ruble may once again bring down next year the Kazakh national currency, the tenge, prompting a third painful devaluation in six years.

The tenge was previously devalued by 25 percent in early 2009 and by another 19 percent this February, thus dealing a heavy blow to the purchasing power of most Kazakh consumers and creating difficulties for small-scale traders.

Yet, Russia's economic slowdown may cause much pain not only in the EEU itself but also beyond its borders. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all heavily depend on labor remittances from Russia, which employs a considerable portion of their working populations.

As the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development recently reported, the flow of such remittances shrank last year for the first time since 2009. While it withstood the 2008-09 financial crisis, the flow of transfers from Russia into Central Asia now seems to be hampered by a stagnating Russian labor market.

This creates substantial risks of at least three kinds. First, the success of the EEU, which is nothing less than Russian President Vladimir Putin's geopolitical project for the 21st century, hinges on its member states' economic health. In this regard, Kazakhstan is clearly the linchpin of Moscow's Eurasian diplomacy since it is the second-largest economy, albeit far behind Russia, of the whole Commonwealth of Independent States and Central Asia's largest.

Dwindling benefits from its membership in the EEU may eventually push Kazakhstan into the embrace of other foreign partners, especially China. The same applies, albeit to a lesser degree, to the case of Kyrgyzstan whose economic situation remains today highly precarious.

Second, worsening macroeconomic fundamentals across Central Asia are harmful to the prospect of smooth and peaceful political transitions in both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. While they may well disrupt two key successions to Presidents Nursultan Nazarbayev and Islam Karimov, the weak economy could also lead to social troubles in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which are the region's poorest states.

And finally, when economic growth is lackluster, various radical groups, including the Islamic State, find it easier to spread their ideologies, therefore making Central Asia a potential target of their renewed activities in 2015.

The author is a Paris-based international affairs expert who writes for the Jamestown Foundation and the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn