“Authoritarian countries, which are united into EEU, will very soon be convinced that they hurried when without the consent of the people, they had pushed Armenia into this Union”, such opinion was expressed by the member of “Heritage” party, Hovsep Khurshudyan, in the conversation with Aravot.am. Recently, at the RF Government session, the agreement of Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union was approved and presented to Vladimir Putin for signing. It will come into effect as of January 1, 2015.
Earlier, the experts were saying that there are serious problems with regard to Armenia’s membership, so to the question of Aravot.am of whether now these obstacles have been overcome, and whether we can say that it is no longer a reality, Mr. Khurshudyan responded, “The biggest obstacle is that such a wide-scale decision is made without asking the people of Armenia, the Armenian society. Moreover, it was made also without any serious examination of economic and political-scientific aspects, but by the whim of one person, the de facto President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan. This obstacle can be overcome, unless there are legitimate elections held in Armenia. Yet, there was no clear response to the question of installation of a customs border between Armenia and Artsakh. The statements made by the officials of Armenia and the first figures of EEU contradict each other, and, I am afraid, as always, the statements made by others would be more consistent with the reality.
In addition, the EEU, in itself, is not a viable union, both by economic and political aspects. Already today, we see that without the consent of its EEU partners, Russia is making such decisions that cannot be called to life without the consent of all, by breaking all the rules of EEU. Meanwhile, the same “sanctions” against Western products cannot have any value, as long as Belarus and Kazakhstan, with whom Russia does not have a customs border, has not agreed to join them. And they do not agree.” Chief of Staff to the President, Vigen Sargsyan, at the meeting with the students of “Luys” foundation, talked about 170 millionth market, the doors of which are opened to Armenia. He announced that Armenia has a more favorable business environment than Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, so the investments will be made here. Hovsep Khurshudyan disagrees with Vigen Sargsyan. “In the result of the next capture of the power delivered to others by the people, the authorities clinging to their chairs have completely lost the sense of reality, which is a serious threat to our country. To begin with that the praise of joining the “EEU 170 millionth market” has become a harp on the same tune, in the event when this market has comparatively lower solvency and scope that the EU 560 millionth market (including the three countries of the Eastern Partnership signing the EU Association Agreement), to which the Armenian authorities refused to be united.
Secondly, the big part of this market, Russia, is in the target of sanctions by the West: the USA, EU and a number of developed countries, which tend to be expanded. Already today, a monthly average of over 10 billion dollars flow of capital from Russia is observed, and pursuant to the IMF data, the outflow per year will be more than 100 billion dollars, which is a huge amount for Russia. Russian authorities, themselves, acknowledge that their economy nowadays is in stagnation. Already today, the largest companies of this country are facing bankruptcy and are asking funds from the government to survive.
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Since the beginning of the year, international reserves of this country have fallen by more than 10 percent, becoming 450 billion from 510 billion dollars. And in the result of the decline in oil prices incited by the US, Russia’s economy has appeared in even worse situation. And in these conditions, Vigen Sargsyan stated that “the international companies, which want to explore this huge market (the Customs Union’s consumer market – ed.), can view Armenia as the best place to start their businesses.” Such an unawareness and inadequacy of the situation? So they govern the country, therefore the population is afraid of such “governance.” Hovseph Khurshudyan said that after September 3, 2013, the western foreign investments in Armenia are coming to naught. And to hope that Russia will keep to its promises of the several 100 million dollar investments given for Armenia’s “customization” is also unrealistic. “It is still good that an economist has told them and they also admit that the CU countries’ economy cannot contribute to the growth of Armenia’s economic competitiveness. Well, in this case, where do we lead Armenia to?”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
