Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
March 23 2007
The EU and Isolating Armenia
Fatma Yilmaz
Friday , 23 March 2007
Through which way the European Union (EU) and Armenian relations has
recently proceeded is the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). If
requires to remind, the ENP signifies a newly-established approach of
the EU which differs from the existing foreign relations of the
Union. Instead, including the neighboring countries on the Eastern
and Southern encompassing borders of new expanding the EU, the policy
goes beyond the present relations with the intention of sharing the
benefits of the EU enlargement with the interested neighbors by means
of increase in security, stability and interests. In this sense, the
ENP sets objectives based on commitments to shared values and
effective implementation of political, economic and institutional
reforms. The implementation of the ENP is to be supported with
financial and technical assistance. For the benefited side, the
prospect of this policy seems to create incentives for the promotion
of comprehensive economic and political reforms.
However, the ENP is not just completely new approach of the EU in
terms of financial and technical assistance so as to encourage the
reforms in the neighboring countries. And Armenia is therefore the
country which the EU has made contribution to its economic and
democratic transformation in terms of the Caucasus policy for a long
time. Since the beginning of 1990s, the EU has been trying to shape
the transformation going on within the Caucasus republics through
technical and financial aids. Programs such as TACIS, FEOGA, ECHO
forms the main tools of this policy. TACIS, among them, is the
well-known one due to its big budget. Under TACIS, the EU gave start
to two different programs following the EU’s strategic interests on
the religion. These are TRACECA (Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus
Asia) and INOGATE (Interstate Oil and Gas Transport to Europe)
programs. Including 13 countries, TRCECA is considered a project of
Europe-Caucasus-Asia corridor aiming at regenerating the ancient Silk
Road. The aim of the mentioned corridor, which forms the shortest,
the fastest and the cheapest road route, was actually to break up
Russian monopoly. Whereas on one hand the project is to reinforce
both political and economic independence of the Caucasus republics,
on the other hand it would enable the EU to access the Far East
without being dependent to Russia. Therefore, it is possible for the
project to be seemed as an infrastructure program which could
possibly have contributed to the Armenian development in theory. But
what about the practice?
Having contributed the reconstruction of Armenia, then, what is the
problem with the EU policies towards Armenia? In fact, firstly what
is the problem? Isolation, needless to say… One of the clear examples
of this isolation is the TRACECA project. Although Armenia is
mentioned within the project on the paper, it could not benefit from
the project in practice. This is mainly because of the Azeri
abstention to the project for Armenia. This therefore made Armenia to
remain outside the EU project. Naturally, the long-lasting
Nagorno-Karabakh issue lies behind the Azeri obstacle. In this sense,
Azerbaijan seems to be so decisive not to allow Armenia to
participate in this EU project. The EU has no way to deter Azerbaijan
to take back its objection since it needs the project whether with or
without Armenia for the benefit of its interests. It seems so that
Armenia causes its isolation with its own policies. How the EU has
contributed indirectly to Armenia’s isolation is that the EU does not
make any pressure on Armenia in terms of a possible solution of the
Nagorno-Karabakh issue to be reached a solution. Similarly, the EU
does not also put pressure on Armenia about the so-called Armenian
genocide issue lasting for long years between Turkey and Armenia as
it does about the Cyprus issue towards Turkey. In result, the
inertness of the EU on the Armenian politics in the region makes this
country believe their policies right to be pursued. Then, such
situation encourages Armenia to insist on the present policies which
actually damage the Armenian both economic and political power in the
region. As long as Armenia believes it could stand just with its own
power in the region, it on the contrary contributes its own isolation
gradually whereas the countries around it have steadily shown
considerable increase in economic terms.
Moreover, although Armenia was the most convenient route for the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, Yerevan unfortunately remained outside
of the project. Armenia was not only excluded from the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project but also there are many projects
on the way in which Armenia can not be included. For instance,
Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey natural gas pipeline which is about to be
completed is one of them. Additionally, although there is an
already-established railway via Armenia, Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway
line will bypass Armenia once more. New projects are also on the way,
and it seems that Armenia will be outside in these coming regional
co-operation projects.
What is more, the US, thanks to the strong Armenian diaspora lobbies
in the Congress, has given generous aids to Armenia, yet the foreign
aid creates not strong Armenian economy, but artificial growth and
more dependency on foreign sources. Meanwhile, we should note that
the US has been one of the most enthusiastic supporters in the
regional cooperation projects which isolated Armenia.
If also estimated the Armenian domestic issues, as Armenia’s power
relatively decreases, the extremists in the country gain the power
reversely and it is possible to claim that Armenia has gradually lost
its independence. Therefore, there is an Armenia in the region which
is gradually isolated itself without having realized the failure of
its own policies towards the neighboring countries. And there is also
an EU let Armenians to feel sufficient to carry out all problems
themselves unnecessarily. In this circumstance, Armenia should be
aware of its potential with its so small population and territory and
of its small-scale economy. It therefore needs to be active in the
region in collaboration with other actors in the region to survive.
Needless to say that it takes great support of the Armenians in
diaspora but to be an effective actor in the region necessitates its
own power.
In such manner, it actually requires to appreciate the policies of
the EU with the motivation of economic and technical aim to its
neighboring countries including Armenia. There is no doubt that the
EU has made key contributions to the transformation of Armenia. As
mentioned above, the EU aid money is mostly channeled through the
TACIS. Since 1994 Armenia has enjoyed consecutive economic growth,
with a considerable high economic growth rate in 2002-2003 (13.2% and
13.9%), which was preserved in 2004 (10.1%). However, this is partly
dependent on considerable flows of international aid and remittances
from the Diaspora.
Furthermore, the European Union alone, during the period 1991-2002,
has provided Armenia with national grants that amount to 318.36
million Euros and loans totaling 86 million Euros. In addition, EU
Member States’ total contributions during the same period were 282
million Euro, bringing total EU assistance to Armenia to
approximately 686,3 million Euro.[1] Nevertheless, this would not
prevent Armenia to play an aggressive role in its external relations
which force it to be isolated. As it does in the US case, the EU aids
mostly through the TACIS program made Armenian growth to be
artificial. The foreign aids to Armenia could not make structural
contribution; in contrast, it makes Armenian economy to be dependent
on foreign investments.
In such an environment, what the EU might to do against the gradual
isolation could be to encourage Armenia to pursue more moderate and
collaborationist role in terms of the solution of its problems with
neighbors. The EU might use its conditional aids as a trigger to
persuade Armenia to agree with the parties of the problems as it does
for the benefit of economic and political reforms in the country.
Otherwise, Armenia would be obliged to withdraw its own shell with
the risk of isolation gradually.
Fatma YILMAZ
ISRO Center for the European Union Studies
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[1] European Union Chamber of Commerce in Armenia, retrieved from:
;parent =EU%20Armenia%20Relationship&link=EU%20Armenia %20Relationship
, 22 March 2007.
http://www.eucca.am/?page=content&