NA Deputy Speaker Hermine Naghdalyan about joining the Customs Union
– The beginning of the four-day session, NA Speaker Hovik Abrahamyan said that there has been coalition discussion regarding the issue of Armenia’s joining the the Customs Union. However, the Rule of Law MPs gave evasive answers, without clarifying whether there were discussions held with them, or not.
– I would estimate the answers evasive, because our colleagues made quite clear statements. To this respect, information was voiced from other sources as well. In fact, there were discussions held also in the Security Council, where our leading political parties were present, including the leaders of the coalition partners. There have been numerous discussions between and with participation of party leaders, there were also discussions with individual parties. In other words, the sense of ambiguity, I think, incurs that although it was not stated directly, the subject was discussed at this time, on this day, at this place. And the reason is that the subject was discussed a lot longer and wider, and for a long time it has been an agenda item.
There is a feeling that there is some special emphasis on the issue of being the result of a sudden decision. Both my colleagues and I have had a chance to say that it is very simple, one-sided and naive approach. Why should such vital and important issue for the state get a sudden solution? These issues are on the agenda for several years. Just to Total indicate a series of meeting-discussion of current year; the Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission had this issue on the agenda in May during his visit to Moscow, at the State Duma. Speakers were appointed from both sides, the issues were reviewed and discussed, upon return there was a press conference, interviews. I specifically want to point out that Dr. of economic sciences Ashot Tavadyan was Co-Reporter from the Armenian side, who presented quite serious and thorough economic analysis.
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To note that the issue was discussed not in the context of joining the EU, or the Customs Union, but under today’s economic development conditions what advantages Armenia may have depending on the direction, which are the positive and negative outcomes. We have analyzed the aspects of the two possible directions, including what other countries have received, what situation the Baltic and Eastern European countries were, when they followed the direction of the EU Association, and so on. This was just a small example of the work of the Inter-Parliamentary Committee, but imagine how seriously all this was discussed at the state higher level.
– If we turn to the political side of the question why the opposition forces, opposition electorate was not involved in the discussions, especially when the President Sargsyan had introduced the tradition to consult with party leaders on key issues for the state. Does the government underestimate the role of the opposition?
– There can be various approaches here. The authorities are open and prone to dialogue. During the entire tenure of Serzh Sargsyan, the role, the importance, which was attributed to the opposition, perhaps has never happened in our history. You remember, by their nature, exclusive meetings and discussions in the political arena.
I want to assure that at all levels where it is possible to preserve the interests of Armenia and to be integrated into the world, this approach is adopted. The world knows various examples of today’s collaboration in the framework of various unions, even without joining the membership. By the way, a few months ago, we were saying the same thing during the debates with the Russian side, pointing out that it may be possible to search and find a format of cooperation without the membership, because we see an obstacle with regard to common border. The same idea is still worth raising, especially since there are many similar examples of the same in Europe. We have studied and are studying this experience. In other words, ultimately we want to say that we are seeking the best format, everywhere, to protect the interests of our country.
– When the document to join the Customs Union is presented to the Parliament for judgment, how likely it is to be rejected.
– I think that today we still need to waits for the information on the content of the negotiation process, because, in essence, what is being discussed by the society and the media is at the level of emotions, there are no arguments and analyzes. When the actions enter into the specific negotiating framework, it will be clear that, for example, what advantages we will have in the energy field, what they will bring to our economic development and so on. The most important issue of the economic environment, however, is a component of the fuel, gas, gasoline, diesel and etc, because they mostly come from Russia, and if the issues of the customs clearance are just reviewed, there has been a significant change in the pricing. In fact, it will result in increase of the well-being of the population, expansion of opportunities for our businesspersons. And, thus, again in many more directions, because a large part of our exports goes to the RF, and import from the RF territory. Only during such contextual discussions, we can talk about the essential conditions, and the Parliament should decide based on this. When the Parliament sees that the conditions are significantly improved, the issue will come out.
– You have also noticed that there is still no contextual discussion, in this case the representatives of the ruling party, who nowadays convince that the decision to join the Customs Union is raised by the interests of Armenia, what did they mean, what interests they were talking about?
– I want to be simple, we are not trying to convince anyone that this decision is true. The most important that we want to say that let our community be sure that we are looking for Armenia’s interest everywhere, and will not do any step beyond or contrary to Armenia’s interests. This is the basic postulate, the rest are developments.
Nelly Grigoryan
