Kyrgyzstan has reportedly filed a lawsuit in opposition to Russia within the Eurasian Financial Union (EAEU) court docket over Moscow’s failure to adjust to agreements associated to migrant employees.
In a January 27 assembly of the Kyrgyz parliament’s labor and social points committee, Azamat Mukanov, chairman of Kyrgyzstan’s Obligatory Well being Insurance coverage Fund, mentioned that the Russian aspect was violating a number of articles of an EAEU settlement pertaining to the supply of medical insurance coverage insurance policies to the households of migrant employees.
“The Kyrgyz aspect filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Russian aspect for failing to adjust to the necessities set out within the EAEU agreements. Obligatory medical insurance coverage insurance policies should even be issued to members of the family of these working in Russia. This settlement is signed by 5 nations,” Mukanov mentioned.
The EAEU was fashioned in 2015, with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan the unique members, quickly joined by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Ostensibly the EAEU encourages the free motion of products and folks throughout the union, however enforcement and software of the union’s guidelines has lengthy been uneven.
The union’s guidelines require migrant employees from member states, and their households, to obtain social safety, together with medical insurance coverage, below the identical phrases as residents of the state through which they’re working.
However in November 2025, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin introduced that migrants in Russia would solely be capable of obtain free medical care after 5 years of authorized work in Russia, contradicting the EAEU buildings meant to supply equal remedy of member state residents throughout the union.
The EAEU Courtroom is predicated in Minsk and is comprised of judges from every of the 5 member states. Mukanov mentioned a listening to was held final week and a call is predicted in two weeks.
There are thousands and thousands of migrant employees in Russia, lots of them from Central Asia. Numbers fluctuate with the seasons, however in March 2025 Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Minister of Labor, Social Safety, and Migration Bakyt Darmankul uulu mentioned that greater than 370,000 Kyrgyz have been registered as migrants in Russia in 2024. Russia stays a high vacation spot for Kyrgyz migrant employees, and remittances stand as a big monetary crutch for a lot of Kyrgyz households. As a proportion of GDP, remittances have been as excessive as 32 % in 2021, although that had fallen to round 17.7 % in 2024, in accordance with World Financial institution Knowledge.
Again in 2015, when Kyrgyzstan was teetering between becoming a member of or not the EAEU, the presumed easing of entry for Kyrgyz employees was a serious draw for membership. And but, through the years – significantly for the reason that begin of the struggle in Ukraine in 2022 and the Crocus Metropolis Corridor assault in 2024 – Russian insurance policies on migrant employees have grown extra restrictive.
