Prospects and Challenges to International Economic and Power Production Cooperation after the Covid-19 Pandemic

The article examines the trends that hinder the development of international energy and economic cooperation in 2018–2020. These trends have been particularly exacerbated by the COVID‑19 pandemic and the resulting global economic and energy crisis. Falling demand for oil has affected the decline in world commodity prices. Competition between oil exporters has intensified amid falling demand. As a result, international energy cooperation mechanisms in the energy sector have come under serious pressure. The dynamics of relations between the world’s largest economic centers: China, the United States, the European Union, and the Eurasian space have become another aspect of the aggravation of imbalances and confrontational trends in the global economy. The strengthening of trade contradictions between the United States and China in 2018–2019 negatively affected global economic growth and the dynamics of major manufacturing indices. In turn, the events of 2020 clearly confirmed that the contradictions between China and the United States are of a deep structural nature. These contradictions exacerbate the polarization of the global economic system and cannot be overcome by concessions and agreements exclusively in the field of investment and trade. Against this background, the real effectiveness of measures taken in the EU to deal with the economic consequences of both the pandemic and Brexit is questionable, and can only be reliably assessed after a sufficiently long time. The authors show that in contrast to the situation in the EU, the EAEU has tendencies to further strengthen economic, political and energy cooperation. Despite the COVID‑19 pandemic, the global economic crisis and external challenges, the Eurasian Economic Union not only stands up to them, but also continues to actively work to unite the Union’s countries, as well as improve their energy and economic security. The authors offer their vision of further development of international economic and energy cooperation in the post-pandemic period, taking into account the positive trends in the development of the Eurasian space.