“The basis of economic cooperation is the process. It is being regularly disrupted”, Arthur Sakunts, Human Rights Defender, Head of Vanadzor office of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly said during the parliamentary hearings on the National Assembly’s decision to start a process of ceasing the operation of the EAEU agreement proposed by the “Yelq” faction.
He spoke about the continuity of power in Armenia and neighboring countries: as we know, the power is transmitted intimately in Azerbaijan, we have not reached there so far, here, the transmission happens by changing from prime minister to president.
He noted that the death penalty, as a form of punishment, has not yet been abolished in Belarus, there are even rumours that Russia wants to restore it too. “There are no elections in Belarus, those are just an event. The same is in Armenia. Systemic impunity, absolute unaccountability, and irresponsibility towards their own citizens are characteristic to these member states. If there was responsibility there would be a shame, and they would not change from president to prime minister. More or less Kyrgyzstan is behaving better, presents many demands, we do not even present such demands”.
He addressed a question, whether who has initiated the EAEU, and what the goal of the initiative is, which is clearly the spread of dictatorial power on post-Soviet countries.
According to him, future is impossible there where everything is determined by a single person, everything is established by a single person, who makes all the decisions by himself: it is not possible to “sit on both chairs” at the same time: “Let those who “sit” not spread the aspirations of “sitting” on us”.
Daniel Ioannisyan, the coordinator of the “Informed Citizens” NGO also touched upon the increase of import customs duties. He said that if import customs duties were 3 percent, now those are 8 percent after acquiring a membership in the EAEU. The share of EAEU in imports dropped, and it led to additional inflation. 25 percent of our foreign trade we carry out with EAEU member states. The other 75 percent may suffer. Customs rates will increase. If Armenia continues its membership in the EAEU, then since 2020, people will pay more for customs duties for cars older than 7 years. For example, customs duties for “Opel” with a 1.6-liter engine will be 2500 euro, and for one with 2-liter engine 4400 euro, value-added tax and environmental tax excluded.
Ioannisyan said that 90 percent of the population buys old cars as they cannot afford to buy new ones. And if they pay 1000 euro for customs duties for old cars now, two years later they will pay 3500-6000 euro, value-added tax and environmental tax included. Since public bodies are buying lots of cars in Armenia, this will be an additional burden on the state budget as well
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
