During the last 3-4 years, a number of Armenian-Polish projects were not implemented because of inconsistent actions by the Polish side. The Director of the “Alternative Research Center” and economist Tatul Manaseryan, in an interview with Aravot.am, mentioned that the reason was the urgings of the West to refrain from the cooperation with Russia and the EaEU. Mr. Manaseryan voiced this fact when he was reminded of the opinion voiced a day before by the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland Jerzy Novakovski that “Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Union is a problem for the Armenian-Polish economic relations.”
Tatul Manaseryan recalling the former Polish ambassador, who according to him was also notable with his good will in Armenia-Russia and Armenia-EaEU relations, noted that it would be desirable that the ambassadors act more of friendly positions because Poland, generally, remains a friendly country for us, and the Armenian-Polish relations have a positive intention to develop. The economist considers the Armenian-Polish economic relations politicized and explains, “Poland has a controversial role in Armenia and EU programs. Personally, I have communicated on scientific, economic and educational matters with the highest circles of Poland who not in the least express the view which was expressed by the Polish ambassador. It should not be forgotten that one of its main reasons is the dictate by the Western superpowers to form such an attitude about the Armenian-Russian relations. Meanwhile, the Armenian-Polish relations are developing by their natural course, and if not for such political urgings, they would be developed in a more favorable course.” Countering to the Ambassador, Mr. Manaseryan noted that Armenia has a good opportunity to develop relations not only with Poland but also with the EU. He reminded that Armenia is a WTO member and in this light, the Ambassador’s statements are contradictory as the rules of the game, in this case, are the same as for the EU member countries.
To our observation that Ambassador is expressing substantive concerns pointing out the issue of export of foodstuffs when the Polish exporters are refusing to implement projects in Armenia substantiating by emerging of new expenditures because of Armenia’s membership to the EaEU, Tatul Manaseryan responded that he sees a political urging and added, “I do not exclude that it had a very decisive influence. On the other hand, we can say for sure that during last year, quite positive trends were observed in the volume of exports of food from Armenia, including also with the EU member countries. I see a contradiction here as Poland cannot have other requirements that the EU has.
The new expenditures are possible over the third countries as both the EaEU and the EU decide on themselves common tariffs for importing goods from those countries. The goal is to promote the production of domestic goods. But there are restrictions here too because, for example, India or China cannot endlessly export to Poland or the EU countries. The decide jointly on how much to allow and how much to disallow, if it is necessary to import more, than they incur additional expenses, but it is not at the expense of Polish exporters. In addition, Armenia is granted privileges under the EaEU on several hundred of products, including foodstuff, hence, now it is not the stage when we can say that Armenia suffers from similar price hikes.
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Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
