The price of a missed choice

The most dangerous traps in politics are usually built by one’s own hands.

The last telephone conversation between Putin and Pashinyan did not become the beginning of the normalization of Armenian-Russian relations. On the contrary, it revealed the impasse to which Armenia has been brought by years of transactional and inconsistent foreign policy.

Nikol Pashinyan did not really have a sincere and consistent desire to “turn his back” on Russia, to leave the EAEU, or to complete Armenia’s European integration. The anti-Russian political line and demonstrative steps in the European direction were primarily a means for him to get the support of European political circles, to turn that support into internal legitimacy and to strengthen the possibilities of reproducing his own power.

But political support is not free. It has its price.

The promises given to the European officials, the law on the initiation of the EU accession process, the Armenia-EU summit, the assurances of the introduction of European standards and the anti-Russian political impulses had to turn into practical decisions sooner or later.

Meanwhile, during the same period, Pashinyan’s government not only did not create real prerequisites for a gradual departure from the Russian economic system, but Armenia continued to be deeply dependent on the Russian market, energy carriers, transfers and the EAEU preferential trade regime.

In other words, the political rhetoric has changed, but the economic structure of the country has not.

Now Russia demands to clarify the choice: EU or EAEU. Moreover, for Moscow, the referendum is not so much a democratic procedure as a means of officially confirming Armenia’s geopolitical choice and transferring all responsibility for it to the people of Armenia.

Russia is actually saying: if the European path is a real choice, fix it and accept its consequences.

Pashinyan cannot agree to an early referendum, because its economic and social consequences can hit the very foundations of his government. But he cannot publicly renounce the European path either, because then he will lose European political support and the image of a “European leader” he has built.

Therefore, Pashinyan found himself not between Russia and Europe, but between the conflicting promises he made.

On one side is the European support and its political price, on the other side is the economic dependence with Russia, and in the middle is the imperative to keep the power at any cost.

That is why he is now trying not to make an election, but to postpone the moment of the election, declaring that the referendum will be possible only after he has officially appealed to the EU and made the issue objective.

But every delayed decision has its price. And that price will be paid not by the authorities who conducted a wrong policy, but by the Armenian producer, exporter, worker and, ultimately, the citizen of Armenia.

This is not just a dispute over the referendum. This is the bankruptcy of Armenia’s foreign policy model.

And this is not a geopolitical trap in which Armenia accidentally found itself. This is the trap built by Pashinyan, the price of which the state and the people of Armenia are going to pay.

Davit Ananyan, former chairman of the RA SRC

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