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Laure Delcour: EU Will Remain Engaged With Armenia, Only Modalities

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  • Laure Delcour: EU Will Remain Engaged With Armenia, Only Modalities

    LAURE DELCOUR: EU WILL REMAIN ENGAGED WITH ARMENIA, ONLY MODALITIES OF THIS ENGAGEMENT WILL CHANGE

    19:21 19/09/2013 " INTERVIEWS

    Panorama presents an interview with Dr. Laure Delcour - Senior
    Research Fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic
    Relations (IRIS), France. Dr. Delcour specializes in the EU policies
    in the post-Soviet area, the EU-Russia partnership and the European
    Neighbourhood Policy.

    - Dr. Delcour, you have written extensively on the European Union's
    policy towards Russia. Could you comment on the current EU policies
    as regards to Russia's neighbourhood and in particular on the recent
    developments within countries like Ukraine, Moldova and Armenia?

    - These countries are not only part of Russia's neighbourhood; they
    have also been part of the EU's neighbourhood since 2004 and 2007
    enlargements. With the Eastern Partnership the EU has significantly
    upgraded its offer to partner countries. It offers association
    agreements, deep and comprehensive free-trade areas, the perspective
    of visa liberalisation subject to conditions being met, and enhanced
    sectoral cooperation. Nevertheless, EU policies require considerable
    efforts and costs on the part of partner countries, while they will
    be able to reap the benefits only in the long-term. In addition, the
    EU has only recently started to take into account the consequences
    of Russia-led regional integration initiatives and the effects of
    Russian policies (ie. Short-term benefits, but also strong pressure)
    on partner countries. The effects of Russian pressure may however turn
    out to be counter-productive and push some countries closer to the EU.

    So the key point is that this is a dynamic process. Joining regional
    integration schemes or initialling association agreement with the EU,
    as expected in the case of Moldova and Georgia at the Vilnius summit,
    is only the beginning.

    - And if this is only the beginning then where are these countries
    ultimately heading - to a geopolitical alliance with EU/NATO?

    - By saying only the beginning I meant that for these countries there
    is still a long way to go to fully implement the commitments that
    will be taken under the AA/DCFTA.

    - The Republic of Armenia has recently announced about Armenia's
    intention to join the Custom's Union and few days later the European
    Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule
    announced that it was no longer possible for Armenia to proceed with
    the Association Agreement. Where exactly does this incompatibility
    rest? Do you think these processes are incompatible in purely economic
    or rather in political (geopolitical) terms?

    - The incompatibility is clearly in economic terms. It lies in
    deep economic integration that both schemes (the ECU and the Deep
    Comprehensive and Free Trade Agreements) propose. For instance, being
    a member of the two schemes would entail complying with, and applying
    two different external trade tariffs, which is of course impossible.

    - How would you assess the future prospects of cooperation between
    the EU and Armenia after the recent developments?

    - The situation is unprecedented and paradoxical. On the one hand,
    Armenia has already achieved considerable progress in adopting
    EU policy templates and approximating its legal framework with EU
    acquis in a number of sectors. This was indeed a EU pre-condition
    for launching DCFTA negotiations. On the other hand, given the
    incompatibility between ECU and DCFTAs, the EU will not initial the
    Association Agreement (of which DCFTA forms an integral part) with
    Armenia at the Vilnius Eastern Partnership summit. However, no doubt
    that the EU will remain engaged with Armenia, only the modalities
    and probably the scale of this engagement will change.

    - How would you characterise the prospects of Russia-led Customs
    Union and the creation of the Eurasian Union?

    Clearly, the Russia-led Customs Union differs from previous regional
    integration projects in the former Soviet space. The ECU is more
    ambitious. It is premised on a strong institutional framework
    including a supranational body and deep economic integration through
    regulatory convergence. However, there are several question marks as
    to the cohesion of this initiative. First, the extent to which member
    countries (currently Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan's interests are
    actually compatible. For instance, Kazakhstan had to increase its
    customs tariffs as a result of ECU membership. And second, ECU's
    actual ability to attract new members. Armenia has just decided to
    join the ECU and Kyrgyzstan expressed an interest as well. However,
    the question is whether this interest in ECU membership is genuine
    or whether it results from external pressures.

    - Dr. Rainer Lindner, Executive Director of the Committee on Eastern
    European Economic Relations, in his latest interview has expressed an
    opinion that the solution to the dilemma between the Custom's Union
    and the EU can lie in the dialogue between Russia and the EU. How
    would you assess the prospects of such a dialogue?

    - The dialogue between Russia and the EU is indeed critical to
    promoting security and democracy in the neighbourhood. The Roadmap
    on external security that was agreed upon in Saint-Petersbourg and
    launched in Moscow in 2005 provided for the strengthening of EU-Russia
    dialogue, and possibly joint initiatives, on crisis management and the
    settlement of regional conflicts, inter alia in those regions adjacent
    to the EU's and Russia's borders. Nonetheless, the EU-Russia dialogue
    on the common neighbourhood has been limited, to say the least. Now
    that Russia has launched the Customs Union, this dialogue is even
    more unlikely to develop. This is because Russia hopes to initiate
    an inter-regional, or inter-block, dialogue with the EU once the
    Eurasian Union is in place.

    - Dr. Delcour, thank you for your comments.

    Source: Panorama.am

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