EAEU report has raised serious questions and concerns; for Armenia, additional

Gagik Tsarukyan, leader of the Prosperous Armenia party, has issued a message from the Yerevan-Kentron penitentiary facility. 

“The EAEU report published a few days ago, which outlines the threats to Armenia’s economy should our country leave the EAEU or have its membership suspended, has undoubtedly raised serious questions and concerns for many. I have tried to assess the actual risks from every possible perspective.

First and foremost, we must look beyond the figures and see the people behind them. Having a background in the real economy and manufacturing, I am particularly sensitive to these specific risks. We must understand that behind the dry language of an economic report are real people. All these ‘percentages’ – whether relating to declines or price increases – point to the risk of thousands of businesses closing or going bankrupt, as well as a deterioration in living standards and a sharp decline in the well-being of tens of thousands of families and hundreds of thousands of people. Behind these figures lie the fates of thousands of people. My concern is not merely with the numbers themselves, but with the potential for a drastic decline in the quality of life of ordinary citizens.

Another crucial point is that this analysis should have been conducted in Armenia rather than leaving it to others to do the work for us. This concerns our country, our economy, and the lives of our citizens. Conducting such an analysis ourselves would have demonstrated our seriousness and our genuine sense of responsibility. A full year before the elections, I set myself the goal of bringing together sectoral experts and highly qualified professionals to develop such scenarios and analyses. These documents should be prepared in Armenia in the first place, so that we do not keep deceiving ourselves with pretty lies and fairy tales. We must realize that this concerns our own lives. Moreover, had we carried out this work ourselves, we would be able to assess the efforts of others with much greater composure.

Finally, there is a third perspective that I consider important: the opportunities. These figures also have another side – namely, significant prospects for work and development. Why not take advantage of these opportunities without creating problems for ourselves within the EAEU? On the contrary, by developing within the EAEU and securing new opportunities, we should strive to strengthen our economy through access to additional markets and investment from various sources. We must not jeopardize the opportunities we already have; instead, we should leverage them to promote development and expansion and improve the well-being of our people.

Economic upheavals have begun across the globe and are unfolding right before our eyes. In my assessment, they will continue, as their root causes run deep. Under these circumstances, any additional major risks for a small nation like Armenia are simply unacceptable. We must proceed with great calm and restraint. Rather than dismantling what already exists, we should use it as a foundation to seize the opportunities presented by a changing world,” the message states.