The idea was suggested in October 2011 by the Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, but the idea was first proposed by the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in a speech, in 1994, in Moscow. On 18 November 2011, the presidents of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia signed an agreement in which they agreed to create the Eurasian Economic Union by 2015. The agreement talked about the membership of candidate states and created the Eurasian Commission (which is based on the European Commission) and the Eurasian Economic Space, which both started work on 1 January 2012.