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HOW EU-RUSSIA RIVALRY STYMIES ARMENIA'S EUROPEAN ASPIRATIONS - EUROPOLITICS
17:56 ~U 06.11.13
By Markus Bernath
When the European Commission concluded talks about association and
free trade with Armenia, Russia's president played out his card. He
offered the Caucasus state something that Europe did not.
Samuel Farmanyan, co-chair of the EU-Armenia Pa rliamentary Cooperation
Committee, puts it bluntly: "We have always told our EU partners
that Armenia is committed to developing its relations with the EU but
never to the detriment of our strategic partnership with Russia. If
it comes to the point of making a choice, Armenia has no other option
but to choose its security".
Back in September, when Vladimir Putin received his Armenian
counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, in Moscow, he invited the small Caucasian
republic to join the Customs Union, a retro-style economic zone of
former Soviet states set up in 2009 by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Sargsyan said 'yes'.
"I was shocked," Naira Zohrabyan, chair of the Standing Committee
for European Integration at the Armenian Parliament, confesses. The
mood in Armenia's capital Yerevan is gloomy some weeks ahead of
the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, that was supposed to seal the
Eastern Partnership and to bind Armenia closer to the European Union,
together with Georgia, Moldova and above all - Ukraine. "It's painful
for me to see our cooperation weakened," says Zohrabyan, who is a
leading member of the pro-business, former ruling party Prosperous
Armenia. "Our place is in the European family."Brussels was quick
to reject Yerevan's decision: membership of Russia's Customs Union,
High Representative Catherine Ashton had warned, is incompatible with
the EU association agreement and the DCFTA as its integral element.
Diplomacy, however, draws a different lesson: Armenia, technically
still at war with neighbouring Azerbaijan, blockaded by Turkey
and dependent on Russia for its security and energy supply, should
never have been put in a position to choose between survival and a
thousand-page agreement of association with the EU. The draft of the
Vilnius declaration leaves a blank space for Armenia. Both sides are
equally at a loss about how four years of successful negotiations
between Brussels and Yerevan could end up in a void. Now, Armenians
wonder what the future might hold for them. Russia, Belarus or
Kazakhstan - the soon-to-be partners in the Customs Union - are
not exactly the model for state building Armenia is looking for,
NGO representatives as well as politicians in Yerevan admit. "There
is no potential in it," one of them declares.
Still, there are some who put up a brave face and laud the advantages
of a Customs Union. "Our goods will be cheaper," assures Hermine
Naghdalyan, one of the vice-presidents of parliament.
Half of Armenia's economy depends on Russia, she says. But trade
figures from 2012 show the big share the EU has come to take in the
Caucasus republic: 24.5% of Armenia's imports originated from the EU,
compared to 30.4% from CIS countries and Georgia; exports to the EU
amounted to 35.4% - much more than the 21% to CIS.
Armenia, a market of around three million people, might be a small
place.
The political damage done by the rivalry between Russia and the EU,
however, now looks huge. It is about hard power versus soft ideas:
Brussels does the talking, Russia has the gas and the army. The 102nd
Military Base in the Armenian city of Gyumri, the biggest Russian army
deployment in the region, is a two-hour drive from Yerevan right on
the Turkish border. For Armenia, Russian soldiers are a psychological
buffer with Turkey and an assurance of sorts that someone will press
the stop button in case Azerbaijan launches a war over the enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"If there had been some sort of security guarantee provided by Europe,
or the US in the past years, we might be in a different situation
now," an Armenian from the diaspora in the West, living in Yerevan,
thinks. "Let's be sincere," Zohrabyan says, "the EU never took
Nagorno-Karabakh into consideration "Farmanyan, a rising political
figure in the governing Republican Party of President Sargsyan,
rather points to Turkey.
"If Turkey had opened the border it would have changed the entire
framework of geopolitics and integration process in the region,"
he says. Ankara signed the Zurich Protocols in 2009 to normalise
relations with Armenia but did not ratify them. Instead, Turkey linked
the opening of the border to progress in Karabakh, leaving Armenia with
only two transport connections to the outside world - through Georgia
and through Iran, that is currently under international sanctions.
"The door to the EU is closed now, but not locked," Farmanyan says. He
sees some leeway for a diminished special agreement with the EU -
and so do the Commission and the high representative.
Armenian News - Tert.am
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
17:56 ~U 06.11.13
By Markus Bernath
When the European Commission concluded talks about association and
free trade with Armenia, Russia's president played out his card. He
offered the Caucasus state something that Europe did not.
Samuel Farmanyan, co-chair of the EU-Armenia Pa rliamentary Cooperation
Committee, puts it bluntly: "We have always told our EU partners
that Armenia is committed to developing its relations with the EU but
never to the detriment of our strategic partnership with Russia. If
it comes to the point of making a choice, Armenia has no other option
but to choose its security".
Back in September, when Vladimir Putin received his Armenian
counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan, in Moscow, he invited the small Caucasian
republic to join the Customs Union, a retro-style economic zone of
former Soviet states set up in 2009 by Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Sargsyan said 'yes'.
"I was shocked," Naira Zohrabyan, chair of the Standing Committee
for European Integration at the Armenian Parliament, confesses. The
mood in Armenia's capital Yerevan is gloomy some weeks ahead of
the summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, that was supposed to seal the
Eastern Partnership and to bind Armenia closer to the European Union,
together with Georgia, Moldova and above all - Ukraine. "It's painful
for me to see our cooperation weakened," says Zohrabyan, who is a
leading member of the pro-business, former ruling party Prosperous
Armenia. "Our place is in the European family."Brussels was quick
to reject Yerevan's decision: membership of Russia's Customs Union,
High Representative Catherine Ashton had warned, is incompatible with
the EU association agreement and the DCFTA as its integral element.
Diplomacy, however, draws a different lesson: Armenia, technically
still at war with neighbouring Azerbaijan, blockaded by Turkey
and dependent on Russia for its security and energy supply, should
never have been put in a position to choose between survival and a
thousand-page agreement of association with the EU. The draft of the
Vilnius declaration leaves a blank space for Armenia. Both sides are
equally at a loss about how four years of successful negotiations
between Brussels and Yerevan could end up in a void. Now, Armenians
wonder what the future might hold for them. Russia, Belarus or
Kazakhstan - the soon-to-be partners in the Customs Union - are
not exactly the model for state building Armenia is looking for,
NGO representatives as well as politicians in Yerevan admit. "There
is no potential in it," one of them declares.
Still, there are some who put up a brave face and laud the advantages
of a Customs Union. "Our goods will be cheaper," assures Hermine
Naghdalyan, one of the vice-presidents of parliament.
Half of Armenia's economy depends on Russia, she says. But trade
figures from 2012 show the big share the EU has come to take in the
Caucasus republic: 24.5% of Armenia's imports originated from the EU,
compared to 30.4% from CIS countries and Georgia; exports to the EU
amounted to 35.4% - much more than the 21% to CIS.
Armenia, a market of around three million people, might be a small
place.
The political damage done by the rivalry between Russia and the EU,
however, now looks huge. It is about hard power versus soft ideas:
Brussels does the talking, Russia has the gas and the army. The 102nd
Military Base in the Armenian city of Gyumri, the biggest Russian army
deployment in the region, is a two-hour drive from Yerevan right on
the Turkish border. For Armenia, Russian soldiers are a psychological
buffer with Turkey and an assurance of sorts that someone will press
the stop button in case Azerbaijan launches a war over the enclave
of Nagorno-Karabakh.
"If there had been some sort of security guarantee provided by Europe,
or the US in the past years, we might be in a different situation
now," an Armenian from the diaspora in the West, living in Yerevan,
thinks. "Let's be sincere," Zohrabyan says, "the EU never took
Nagorno-Karabakh into consideration "Farmanyan, a rising political
figure in the governing Republican Party of President Sargsyan,
rather points to Turkey.
"If Turkey had opened the border it would have changed the entire
framework of geopolitics and integration process in the region,"
he says. Ankara signed the Zurich Protocols in 2009 to normalise
relations with Armenia but did not ratify them. Instead, Turkey linked
the opening of the border to progress in Karabakh, leaving Armenia with
only two transport connections to the outside world - through Georgia
and through Iran, that is currently under international sanctions.
"The door to the EU is closed now, but not locked," Farmanyan says. He
sees some leeway for a diminished special agreement with the EU -
and so do the Commission and the high representative.
Armenian News - Tert.am
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress