EU Not Abandoning Armenia – Politician

EU NOT ABANDONING ARMENIA – POLITICIAN

13:08 * 17.02.14

The documents titled “20 Points on the Eastern Partnership
Post-Vilnius” demonstrates the European Union’s willingness to continue
its partnership with Armenia, says a politician.

Speaking to Tert.am, the deputy leader of the opposition Heritage
party, Armen Hovhannisyan, shared both his positive and negative
outlook on the proposed deal. He said despite the positive prospects
that the document inspires, certain wordings give grounds for concerns.

“Even the phrase ‘deeper cooperation with Georgia and Moldova’, the EU
perspective for Ukraine and Armenia’s somewhat restricted cooperation
testifies to the fact that Armenia’s status is lowered,” he said.

On the other hand, the EU has realized that they have to work more
openly with the society, the politician added. “They have also realized
that they should have submitted the agreements to enable us to clearly
make comparisons between the Association Agreement and the terms of
the Customs Union [integration]”.

Martirosyan said he thinks that the document should have reflected
the real situation with electoral processes (as seen by European
officials).

“We saw that the points contain a provision ruling out Russian
pressures, but they may later promote closer ties between Armenia and
the EU. But it has to be content-based, not the way that has existed
so far. Legislative packages and assessment will be no use to us,”
he added.

Commenting on the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee’s
14th session thatfailed to adopt a joint statement on Nagorno-Karabakh,
Martirosyan said he doesn’t think the European partners’ attitude was
unexpected in the light of Armenia’s decision to join the Russian-led
Customs Union (despite the four-year negotiations with the EU).

“I don’t think Russia was the problem here; it was Europe’s response.

The same delegation did not come to Armenia after [President Serzh
Sargsyan’s September 3] statement on the Customs Union. And the
resolutions on Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] they referred to were not
pro-Armenian,” he noted.

Asked whether he doesn’t think that the new document would be yet
another formal deal, Martirosyan said that the important thing now
to be given a chance for undertaking real steps in Armenia.

Armenian News – Tert.am

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress