“Is our country on the right track?” the taxi driver asks me. “No,” I say, “our country is going down the wrong and destructive path.” “Is it a mistake to go to Europe?” my interlocutor asks. I give a negative answer again. “Going to Europe is right. But you have to go, not pretend.”
Let me remind you, Armenia continues to be a member of the CSTO, EAEU, and CIS, which are not European structures at all. If the aforementioned structures do not give us anything, then why do we stay there? If they do give us something, then there is no need to fill the air with “European” words.
Let’s look at these structures briefly, using public information (perhaps there is classified information that is not available to us; in which case, there should be some hint about it).
The CIS is an organization where no practical issue is resolved. It is simply a club of post-Soviet countries, where staying or leaving has a purely symbolic (and in that sense, political) significance. Naturally, Russia may express dissatisfaction with our withdrawal, but I do not think that terminating CIS membership will have serious consequences.
Read also
The EAEU and CSTO are another matter. Yes, “at least two CSTO countries” have been arming our enemy for years, and our soldiers were also killed by Russian and Belarusian weapons during the 44-day war. Yes, during the aggression against Armenia in 2021 and 2022, the CSTO did not fulfill its obligations and did not protect the territorial integrity of a member state. They will not do that during the next aggression either.
Therefore, it would be quite logical to leave that organization. Pashinyan only announces such an intention but does nothing to implement it. It is interesting that the “pro-Europeans” praising the “wise policy” of the prime minister do not express any dissatisfaction regarding this duality.
They also did not rebuke the Prime Minister in any way when he publicly refused to hold a referendum on EU membership. Although, before that, there was a lot of noise related to that referendum: hearings, press conferences, speeches, during one of which it was even said that the return of pro-Russian forces to power is “prevented” by that referendum. Now it turns out that it “does not prevent.”
So, no practical steps are being taken “towards Europe.” If you ask me, the most important steps in that direction should be the real separation of the branches of power and the creation of democratic management mechanisms. In that sense, we are “pure Asia” for now.
Aram Abrahamyan
