Today, at the 15th session of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, the National Assembly MP Galust Sahakyan assured that the EU has been and continues to be Armenia’s key partners. Samvel Farmanyan stressed that he is happy that the wall of misunderstanding with the EU partners that seems to be rising is gone. According to him, the recognition of the genocide is much higher issue of humanity. If nowadays we are able to fix that the crime against humanity is to be condemned, then the humanity afterwards will be more secure from such tragedies happening. British delegate Sajjad Karim was very pleased with the Armenian hospitality and reception. In his words, “I discovered that I know two words: hazar that means a thousand in Armenia and the second word – dhol, which means a drum. We seem to be welcomed with thousand drums and I am grateful to you for such a warm welcome.”
Deputy Head of Division Eastern Partnership-Bilateral of EEAS, Adriano Martins spoke on behalf of the EU. He made an important emphasis on the new Armenia-EU cooperation and said, “The European Union is currently revising the plan of the European Neighborhood Policy, which is a regular process. Now we have to understand how the policy can be better led. We are implementing this review in 4 main stages. We should more consider the peculiarities of each partner state. This does not mean that there was no differentiation in the past. We implement the review of the policy for six states. We consider the lessons of the past, and the opinions that are expressed by our partner states. The second component is the attitude of the owner. The base of the cooperation of great states underlies the principle to mutually respect the interests of the two partners.”
Talking about future plans with Armenia, he said, “We will continue cooperating in a number of spheres: migration, energy, and security. We are trying to be more flexible to be able to respond quickly to changing circumstances. We are ready to think of the cooperation of other spheres this year to make our policy more effective and targeted.” He mentioned that according to projections, Armenia’s GDP will decline by another 1% this year, and the EU remains a major donor for Armenia. He assured that it is not possible to extract some part from the Association Agreement and sign half of it. As for the new frameworks of the cooperation, a cooperation can start in a new sphere of visa-free and aviation. “One can find new spheres of cooperation and continue our cooperation.” Samvel Farmanyan made such a remark that mutual understanding is a good response to all the critics who a year ago had predicted the end of the Armenia-EU relations.
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Adriano Martins responded to Samvel Farmanyan by giving a slap to our policy, “I assume that when you said that they were predicting the end of the Armenia-EU relations, we are talking about the time when Armenia signed and joined the Customs Union. In other words, there was an assumption that the negotiations will end. The assumptions were wrong. Although the trade with the EU makes one-third of Armenia’s foreign trade, which is important for Armenia and not important for the EU, it make the 0.01 per cent or less of overall trade. It is Armenia that should benefit and not the EU. Should Armenia export all its commodities to the EU, again it would make the 0.03 percent, a small share, in the EU trade. And we do not use military arguments against the countries.”
Samvel Farmanyan says, “I’m not an economist by profession. One-third of Armenia’s trade, yes, falls to the EU markets, but we should consider which of the products are sold, it is unfortunately mainly the mining industry: copper and molybdenum. While for other industries, the EU market still remains not so much accessible for the agricultural products, although being the most purchasing market in the world. We as a country have much to do here in this direction. Unfortunately, due to the illegal blockade for Armenia’s economy, an economy that is void of great natural resources, the blockade creates additional difficulties. We need to take steps that will contribute to a large-scale solution of global economic matters. While singing the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement, less economic growth was expected within short-term. Provided by dozens of factors, Armenia has always been and is guided by the policy of not opposing the economic processes with each other but comparing.” He urged to focus on the EU-Armenia relations and respect Armenia’s decision on joining the EaEU.
