Politkom (in Russian), Russia
Dec 16, 2013
Armenia Between Europe and Eurasia: Return to Policy of Balancing?
by Sergey Minasyan, leader of political studies department of
Yerevan’s Caucasus Institute
“The EU and Armenia are now working on a new juridical basis for their
relations, and it is possible that this will be a new association
agreement,” Zdzislaw Raczynski, Polish ambassador extraordinary and
plenipotentiary to Armenia, declared 13 December 2013 in an interview
for Radio Liberty’s Armenian editorial office. These words can, in
part, be described as the first public signal that, following the
virtual failure of the Eastern Partnership programme’s Vilnius summit,
Brussels may be displaying a somewhat more flexible approach to the
concept proposed by Armenia for combining its involvement in both the
Customs Union and the Association Agreement with the EU.
It should be pointed out that official Yerevan declared its readiness
to combine European association with membership of the Customs Union
back at the time of the celebrated meeting of Presidents Vladimir
Putin and Serzh Sargsyan 3 September 2013, when Armenia’s wish to join
the Customs Union was announced. This was aired in the Armenian
president’s speech in the presence of Putin, who declared that Armenia
would continue its cooperation with the EU in those spheres (primarily
economic policy) that would not run counter to the country’s future
membership of the Customs Union. It is possible to believe that this
was agreed by Sargsyan with the Russian president beforehand in the
course of previous complex Armenian-Russian negotiations and was one
element of Yerevan’s package decision to join the Customs Union.
In an interview with Armenian media the very next day, 4 September,
Vigen Sarkisyan, leader of the Armenian president’s administration,
stated Armenia’s readiness to initial the Association Agreement with
the EU at the upcoming Vilnius summit of the Eastern Partnership, but
without a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA). It was
obvious to the Armenian side that this was a technically impossible
option ahead of the Vilnius summit (the DCFTA was an inalienable part
of Association). Nevertheless, official Yerevan advanced a kind of
proposal which at that time, quite predictably, was rejected by
European officials. However, it can also be assumed that this
statement was not only meant to show Yerevan’s readiness to retain at
least the level of agreements already reached with the EU. This may
have also been an attempt by the Armenian authorities partially to
shift the responsibility for the subsequent failure of the process of
initialing the Association Agreement onto the EU. Be that as it may,
at that moment Yerevan’s initiative was predictably doomed to failure.
On the one hand, the EU displayed a certain “grudge” against Yerevan,
manifested even in the statements of European officials at the highest
level. This was because the success of the Vilnius summit was a matter
of “personal prestige” for some of them -for example, for Stefan Fule,
European commissioner for enlargement issues. After the initial milder
statements regarding official Yerevan’s choice, in the second half of
September the EU beefed up its rhetoric. Brussels doggedly endeavoured
to ignore the circumstance that the process of initialing (and in the
case of Ukraine -also signing) the Association Agreement by the four
Eastern Partnership countries had, precisely because of the European
officials’ imprudent stance, turned from a purely technical process of
economic integration into a tough geopolitical struggle with Russia
(with Moscow’s perfectly predictable tough reaction in return).
Therefore the EU’s Brussels attempted to portray Yerevan’s refusal to
initial the Association Agreement as a result of the Armenian side’s
lack of steadfastness in its perception of the “European dream” and of
obvious pressure on Moscow’s part, and not as Armenia’s reluctance to
sacrifice its priorities in the security sphere in the geopolitical
confrontation in the post-Soviet area.
On the other hand, based precisely on the priorities of classic
“Realpolitik,” European officials had more serious and pragmatic
reasons to display inflexibility in the fall of 2013 with regard to
the choice made by Armenia. The EU needed to support Ukraine in its
resistance to Russia (with simultaneous pressure on Viktor
Yanukovych’s administration in the matter of releasing Yuliya
Tymoshenko), but since the “Ukrainian question” had to all intents and
purposes turned into a no-score draw between Brussels and Moscow,
under these conditions this required, a priori, a show of European
“principledness” with regard to Armenia. Therefore it was publicly
declared that it was not possible to sign the Association Agreement
because of Armenia’s possibly joining the Customs Union (which runs
counter to the terms of a free-trade zone with the EU).
However, after the end of the Vilnius summit with its well-known
results, one gets the impression that the EU became more flexible in
respect of the format of a possible new Association Agreement with
Armenia. Having realized that a geopolitical struggle in terms of
“either-or” is becoming too costly and complex a task even for the EU
itself (and too serious a choice for many post-Soviet countries),
Brussels may well reconsider its approaches. Particularly as the EU
must make haste on this issue so as not to lose what it is still left
with in the post-Soviet area, where Moscow is alternating its “carrots
and sticks.”
For example, when the main aim of Moscow’s pressuring the Armenian
leadership was not even so much Armenia’s joining the Customs Union as
preventing Yerevan’s initialing of the Association Agreement in
Vilnius, then the main tool for “persuading” Moscow was pressure on
Yerevan in matters of security (mainly connected with the Karabakh
conflict) and deliveries of energy resources. But after the virtual
torpedoing of the Vilnius summit, after the political decision adopted
by Yerevan to join the Customs Union and Kyiv’s decision to abandon
the signing of the Association Agreement with the EU, Moscow somewhat
changed its approaches and its position on a number of aspects of
great importance to Yerevan.
The time came for “carrots” -not only addressed to Yerevan but also
capable, to a considerable degree, of serving as a “clear example” to
Kyiv as well. In particular, some signs of a correction of the Russian
position on matters of regional security and the Karabakh conflict and
also a galvanization of military-technical cooperation and
preferential deliveries of Russian arms to Armenia became apparent. A
reduction in the price of the Russian gas being delivered to the
republics, fixed through 2018 and tied to internal Russian prices, was
also announced during Putin’s visit to Armenia. Some other
Armenian-Russian accords in the economic and investment spheres were
also announced.
Accordingly, the EU must make haste, for the policy of robust pressure
on the Armenian leadership is now counterproductive and can only
prompt Yerevan still harder to turn once and for all towards Moscow.
As a result, quite a favourable situation can take shape for Armenia
to continue its traditional policy of balancing between the leading
foreign policy players in the post-Soviet area. At the same time
Armenia’s attempts effectively to combine two integration projects can
also serve as a good example to Moscow and Brussels themselves, whose
geopolitical confrontation in the Ukrainian political field at the
present time will, to all appearances, only intensify.
In his interview Ambassador Z. Raczynski described the political
realities that have taken shape around Armenia as follows: “My view of
the situation is as follows: Armenia’s security is guaranteed, first,
by its membership of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and,
second, by special bilateral relations with Russia, and these
components are not at variance with association with the EU.
Admittedly, we do not yet have such examples, but why should Armenia
not be among the pioneers? That is, I mean that Armenia remains in the
security area guaranteed by Russia, but at the same time it enjoys the
privileges and the know-how that the EU can provide. This could have
been a very interesting and even historic political experiment.”
It has to be emphasized that Zdzislaw Raczynski is one of the most
professionally trained EU ambassadors presently accredited in Armenia
with a good grasp of the regional political realities. The ability to
have a clear understanding of the specific nature of the very complex
political context in the South Caucasus, as well as of the framework
and the limitations of Armenia’s traditional policy of balancing
between the most important geopolitical poles, was always
characteristic of the diplomats representing Warsaw in Yerevan. At the
same time it is possible to assert that the Polish ambassador’s
statement is not only a manifestation of his personal perspicacity but
also a symbol of some kind of trend in overall EU policy towards
Armenia. As long ago as 11 December, as a first step in implementing
the declaration on the development of cooperation, signed between
Armenia and the EU at the Vilnius summit 29 November, the European
Parliament adopted the decision to include the republic in a number of
internal European programmes, particularly in the spheres of
education, science, and culture.
The example of Armenia, where it is likely that the European
integration processes will return to the former, mainly technical
format of joint economic projects, of comprehensively promoting
reforms, of deepening democratic institutions, and defending
fundamental human rights, may also mean that the EU in its post-Soviet
policy may not intensify the struggle with Russia in the field where
Moscow “by default” is stronger and more confident -in the field of
“classic” geopolitics within the coordinates not even of the 20th
century but almost the 19th century. It must not be forgotten, in the
end, that the geopolitical ghosts of Bismarck and Metternich roam the
Kremlin’s dark corridors far more frequently than the glass stories of
the European Commission’s Brussels building.
[Translated from Russian]