Oppositionist: Armenia's decision to join the Customs Union was correct

Let me not waste time responding to the manipulations of the representatives of the "Civil Contract" voiced in the National Assembly. This was written on his Facebook page by a member of the Republican Party of Armenia, opposition MP Hayk Mamijanyan.

He, in particular, noted:

"Below I will present part of my comment to the Mediamax agency, which contains answers to all the lies said.

"In 2013, there was a lot of talk about the process of Armenia's membership in the Customs Union, and now - the EEU. In some circles, this event is characterized as a "u turn" or a sharp turn. The main reason for this is that people who make such statements do not fully understand the philosophy of the "Eastern Partnership", at least when it was presented to the Republic of Armenia at the initial stage. The "Eastern Partnership" was not based on the logic of "either-or".

From the very first stage of negotiations, the Republic of Armenia presented its economic interests in the then single market of the Customs Union to our European partners. Both the EU and Customs Union partners knew about the parallel negotiations. However, at some point, our EU partners announced a change in their position.

For the first time, the incompatibility of the two negotiation processes was mentioned, and the negotiations turned from the “and-and” format into a unilateral “either-or” format. Armenia immediately responded that there had never been and could never be talk of the “either-or” logic.

Having shown initiative, the Armenian side proposed signing only the first part of the Association Agreement – ​​the political block, which excluded the concerns expressed by our EU partners regarding the incompatibility of the two single economic markets.

The European side rejected this proposal, stating its impossibility. However, I must note that less than a month after these negotiations, the Association Agreement with Ukraine was signed, without the economic block, based on this very logic.

On the other hand, on September 3, 2013, the third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan announced Armenia's decision to join the Customs Union. Later, the Republic of Armenia became a full member of the Customs Union. This was the result of negotiations initiated by Armenia.

In order not to burden the reader with economic and statistical evidence, I will cite just one figure: the products of about 300,000 farms of the Republic of Armenia were exported to the Russian Federation. Therefore, there can be no talk of any turning point. During one of the two parallel negotiations, our partners changed the logic of the negotiations halfway through, and Armenia simply expressed its opinion at both negotiating platforms.

Both the "and-and" logic at the initial stage and the "either-or" logic were presented to the Republic of Armenia by the negotiators delegated on behalf of the EU."

Reprinted from https://news.am/