Kazakhstan's integration into the Eurasian Economic Union: Examining Kazakh experts and citizen assumption of the union prospects

This study investigates how Kazakhstani citizens and experts evaluate the coun-try's integration into the Eurasian Economic Union and its advantages and disad-vantages. The main goal of this article is to determine the benefits for Kazakhstan from participation in the EEU, which is based on the facts and assessments of the public and the expert community. The relevance of the research lies in the fact that Kazakhstan is at a crossroads, having several opportunities for cooperation: further integration into the EEU, deepening cooperation with the EU, or coopera-tion with China. Since the events in Ukraine in February 2024, relations between Russia and EU member states have deteriorated significantly, it is absolutely im-possible to combine both of these processes. All this makes it extremely important to study the assessment of the prospects of the EEU by experts and the population of Kazakhstan, since the representatives of the authorities must fulfill the will of the people, as in all democratic countries. To conduct the research, a wide source base on the chosen topic and several general scientific methods were used, such as: the method of analysis and synthesis, the method of comparison, the graphic method, abstract-logical and dialectical methods. According to the results of this study, Kazakhstani people positively estimated the EEU prospects, and entering the common market was one of the main motivations. However, the EEU activi-ties seem unsuccessful from an economic perspective, especially considering the current geopolitical situation.