As viewed by Aram Safaryan, Head of “Integration and Development” research and analysis NGO, Armenia’s road map accession to the Customs Union, which was approved last year-end, is an action plan and a phase, which Armenia must go through on the way to the accession to the CU. Mr. Safaryan is not familiar with the document just for the reason that it was not published, however, he thinks that it will include amendments in about 70 laws and compliance of 20-30 agendas to RA acting laws, regulations, and Government Decrees and so on, which are published and uploaded in Eurasian economic Commission website, in Russian, and serve the legal base of CU activities.
According to the opinion of our interlocutor, in the context of the statement made from the highest level that until February Armenia should pass to the way of CU accession, there are two problems.
“Firstly, in my deep conviction, the debates on implementation of the road map should be made transparent, open and understandable to the public. Because, I think that our civil society, a part of which is a very skeptical towards Armenia’s accession to the CU prospect, should be satisfied, should get enough knowledge and information about these processes. Secondly, which I think is very important, too, is that generally some work should be conducted among the society to explain, elucidate the possible benefits from our membership to the CU.” Aram Safaryan considers the way to CU accession a difficult task, but it should definitely be transparent. To our observation that Armenia’s European Association process was not transparent either, and now, this trend seems to be continuing in the process of CU’s accession, our interlocutor said that there were different information from the European Association document and the civil society institutions had different information from different sources. “They were all partly true, but they knew a small portion of the reality referring only to them. I think that it’s the same, sooner or later, the CU accession process will become transparent and understandable for us, as the issue will be considered in the National Assembly, where there are debates, discussions and voting. Therefore, I think that it would be better to lead the negotiation process of the coming two-months transparent and understandable to the public, at least, for those interested. The political decision has been adopted and now it’s time to hold debates over the baseline terms of our accession. Will we get the benefit of the exceptions and advantages mentioned by President Putin in Gyumri? What are these privileges and benefits? These are topics that require discussion among the society.”
Nelly Grigoryan
