In Strasbourg, February 5-6, the 14th session of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee for the first time in recent years did not pass the joint statement, which has given rise to concern among our society. There are many interpretations of this theme, there is also disagreement among the members of the Armenian delegation, however, everyone seems to agree on one thing: the European parliamentarians attitude change was associated with Armenia’s policy change, with the statement of joining the Customs Union. To our question whether the statement about joining the Customs Union was indeed the cause of some tension, Margarit Yesayan, a member of the EU-Armenia parliamentary Armenian delegation, NA MP, responded, “From the moment when the President of Armenia stated about Armenia’s joining the Customs Union on September 3, this was the first session of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and it is natural that there should be some tension, there should be a situation when we would be asked and they would want to hear the answers. Although the agenda was very full, and we had prepared speeches about many issues and were prepared for discussions, however, it was obvious that our European partners were mostly interested in why, after four years of negotiations, when we were obviously going to the EU Association Agreement, all of a sudden it was announced that we are joining the CU. They participated in the negotiations over the Association Agreement, they are well aware of our problems, and it is natural that they were concerned about the issue, and there was offensiveness and resentment in somewhere. We, naturally, tried to remind them that it was not an unexpected decision, that our president and other officials in various statements did not unequivocally denied the possibility of joining the Customs Union, we recalled the statement made by the President of Armenia once, which said “not either-or, but and-and, that “we are ready to cooperate with the Customs Union in economic sector, and with the European Union in democracy, human rights, combat corruption, and introduction of real European values systems.” To our question of whether this offensiveness caused the session to fail, Mrs. Yesayan answered, “I have read here in the press that the session failed, but I officially declare that no such thing has happened.
The session did not fail, two sessions took place: on February 5 and 6, there was just a delicate difference, since their plenary session was taking place on the same days, of course, they also wanted to participate in it, there were not a great number of deputies in the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee. It was the first time I attended that session, but our older deputies told that it was also happening in the past, and there were not very many participating MPs.” We also asked Mrs. Yesayan whether it is true that should the head of the Armenian delegation, Samvel Farmanyan, has displayed a diplomatic flexibility, a statement of not violating Armenia’s interests would be accepted, as it is claimed by opposition MPs, particularly Tevan Poghosyan from the “Heritage” and Aghvan Vardanyan from ARF. In response, the MP said. “Tomorrow we have invited a press conference and we will be distributing the text of the statement and you will see, meanwhile I will say the following, the statement consisted of three parts, the first and second parts, which were about the Armenia-EU and Armenia-Turkey-EU relations, did not raise any problem, we all came to an agreement, and there was no objection. But, when it came to Nagorno-Karabakh, the passions rose. To our surprise, the European co-chair of the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, the Czech Republic representative, Milan Tsabernokh, abruptly announced that the version, which he represents, should not be subjected to any change. Although, before that, about two months ago we had sent our objections and recommendations regarding the statement of NK-related text, but, unfortunately, our objections were not adopted and were not found in the text. Naturally, we could not be in favor of a text, in which the most important and fundamental problems were left out regarding the peaceful and negotiated settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In particular, the main principles of the Helsinki Final Act were left out of the text, which applies to use of force, territorial integrity and the right to self-determination.” In other words, whether there was a consensus within the group not to sign under unfavorable statement, in response to our question, the NA MP responded, “Yes, there was a consensus within our group not to adopt a statement, which does not proceed from the interests of peaceful settlement of the conflict. Armenia’s co-chair of the Committee, Samvel Farmanyan, said that he would not sign a statement under this format, and so it happened. We decided that it’s better not to accept any statement than to accept a statement, which will not contain favorable provisions.”
Melania BARSEGHYAN
