“The same Mr. Füle and all our European colleagues think that they have seen how deep our cooperation with RF is, both military technical, political, and economic spheres. And I do not think that it is a surprise for them that our President announced that we would like to join the Customs Union, which, naturally, will be verified by certain contract in the future”, – so reacted RPA MP Sukias Avetisyan in the interview with Aravot.am regarding the observations of EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle.
We remind you that the European official, in the interview with Mediamax news agency, http.//www.aravot.am/2013/09/12/384774/, has clearly stated,- “It has been the EU’s consistent position that the political association and economic integration must go hand in hand and that they are integral parts of the Association Agreement. We cannot therefore decouple those two essential building blocks of the Agreement.”
Even after this announcement, the ruling RPA party’s representative claims that Armenia has chosen the Euro integration path, and continued,- “If there are any issues that they believe are unacceptable … however, we do not have the initialing agreement in our hands to understand what is requested there, nor the Customs Union Agreement. When these two agreements will be available for all of us, we would review as to which part is acceptable and which is not.”
We inquired, as the MP also admitted that the Customs Union agreement is not available and yet it is not clear as to what the other side has to offer, then why during these days the ruling RPA representatives in every way are trying to persuade that it is advantageous for Armenia. “For the last 23 years, we have not commenced any agreement, any statement, integration process with the EU, but we had already laid the foundation with the Russians. That’s why we can not refuse from that path. We have commenced this path, we have moved forward by this path, parallel to the Europe we will try to lead this integration policy.”
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Recently, for the first time in his press conference, NSC Secretary Arthur Baghdasaryan stated that the European partners have always been aware of Armenian-RF relations and their prospects. Mr Füle stated explicitly on that occasion,- ” The EU was directly informed of the development only on 31 August. It was not part of the discussions when I last visited Yerevan in July.” In response to our observation in this regard, Sukias Avetisyan said,- “I do not know whether they learned about it at the last moment, or today they are trying to find an excuse and say that because we learn about it in the end, therefore we do not want to cooperate with you today. In other words, the President has given his consent to join the Customs Union in the future. There is no agreement. When we conclude an agreement with RF, and then with the EU, let then the Europeans say that they ignore us.”
To our questions, if these documents are publicized, and it turns out that it is more beneficial for Armenia to integrate with the EU, whether Armenia will cut its umbilical cord with the RF, the MP repeated that past experience shows that Armenia is more reliable and safe with the CIS countries than with that of Europe.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
