EU will discuss the issue of further development of relations with Armenia after the Vilnius summit, said Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt in Chişinău in the interview with “Liberty” radio station Moldovan Service, “The decision that was made by Armenia stems from very specific geopolitical realities characteristic to that country. At the same time, it must be emphasized that they have not abandoned the Eastern Partnership program. From the moment when the decision to join the CU was made, a real downpour of visitors from Armenian began, and we were constantly said “in reality we did not want to leave the process, we wanted to move forward as possible, but there were certain pressures,” Bildt noted, “after Vilnius we will review the possibilities of develop of relations with Armenia. This cooperation, of course, will not be within Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement. Of course, we will develop other forms of cooperation,” – clarified he.
Recently, in the article provided to “Aravot”, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt conveyed the main message about what needs to be done to fully use the potential of the Eastern Partnership, “to reach it we need a stronger commitment of our partner countries to the values”, as well as concentration of efforts of all sectors of society.
Vilnius summit will surely be the start of summit of achievements for some countries. European universal system of values, the agenda of reform to achieve it will take these countries towards European integration, to which the EU countries tend to the vision to have free Europe.
And, where is Armenia heading to?…
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The statements of RA authorities in recent days continued to state the position of the official Yerevan: the EU Association Agreement is on the table of negotiations, in other words, it is on the agenda for the authorities of Armenia. Although, European officials allude that they do not consider the process of rewording of the Association Agreement acceptable, it is clear that, however, there will be a new format, regardless of how the new document will be called. This, of course, will be hard to imagine, since it is not clear as to how deep Armenia will get into the Eurasian integration process with its intention of joining the Customs Union. A process, from which even the member states ‘do not have a clear clue’.
Today, the meeting of Eurasian Supreme Economic Council is planned in Minsk, where Presidents of RF, Belarus and Kazakhstan will discuss the main directions of integration in the Eurasian territory, as well as the willingness of Kyrgyzstan to join the Customs Union. Yesterday, Russian “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” wrote that Kazakhstan believes that the rapid pace of integration will do harm to full activities of Common Economic area. It was also noted that the situation created in the CU is not quite clear. According to Sultan Akimbekov, director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics in Kazakhstan, there are a lot of problems accumulated in the CU, that they have hurried in its establishment, and many documents were left half-completed, “Today we encounter with that problem. For example, there are problems related to the accessibility of Kazakh goods in the Russian market. Any items can be brought from Russia to Kazakhstan, but from Kazakhstan to Russia, it is not easy,” said Akimbekov.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev recently had noted, “Kazakhstan occupies only 7 percent of Russia’s market, therefore, we appear in the situation of defeatism.” He believes that the trade between CU countries has increased, and now there are Russian and Belarusian products in the Kazakh market, but Kazakhstan sells its products less than the CU partners do. Nazarbayev said that such deficit of the trade is dangerous for them.
In other words, the Customs Union, actually, on the one hand, deprives its member countries of the opportunity to conduct their own foreign trade policy, on the other hand, there is the risk of rising prices in the domestic market, and under this conditions, haste in CU expansion is just not clear and and unjustified.
Emma GABRIELYAN
