By Vestnik Kavkaza
Last weekend, Vladimir Putin and Nursultan Nazarbayev talked on the phone about the preparation of the meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council scheduled for the end of December in Moscow. It is unknown if the issue of Armenia's joining the Eurasian integration associations was discussed. However, before the Russian president expressed the opinion that "the Armenian experts , specialists, economists considered all the benefits and advantages, all possible preferences from such close collaboration work within these cooperation, integration associations and made their choice ."
However, in Yerevan not everyone thinks so. Recently, Paruir Hayrikyan , leader of "National Self-Determination" party , which organized a rally in the capital of Armenia , expressed the view that joining the CU, Armenia will face the threat of destruction , and called the decision to join the Customs Union a "political mistake." Secretary of the Board of "Heritage" party Stepan Safarian during the socio-political discussion "Challenges of Armenia's foreign policy after Vilnius" said that Armenia was in the "customs tunnel at the other end of which there is no visible light." "We know that on December 24 some sort of agreement will be signed, and in February 2014 the process of Armenia's accession to the Customs Union will begin. And I want to publish this roadmap”, Safarian said.
Meanwhile, Moscow does not see any specific threats to Armenia after its accession to the CU. “Concerns in Armenia as well as in other countries will be associated with the fact that with joining the Customs Union the prices on certain goods, the import duties on which will be raised, will increase”, Andrey Areshev, expert of the Center for the Study of Central Asia and Caucasus at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said. “Duties within the Customs Union on certain product groups, for example, certain cars, household appliances, etc. will be higher than those, that now exist in Armenia. Yes, indeed, probably, these fears have a place to be, but when we talk about integration in the Customs Union we need, in my opinion, to have a comprehensive view of the problem, to consider advantages and disadvantages together and see what outweighs what”.
In the case of Armenia, on the one hand we have this and on the other side of the scale we have not only gas prices. “For example, a freer movement and duty-free import of Armenian products, agricultural products at the markets of the Customs Union, which is 80%. I recall that once the Yerevan Brandy Factory was privatized by the French largely because of the promises that Armenian brandy will appear at Western European markets. And where is this market now? It is practically not more than in 10 years. At the same time in Russia nowadays, in Moscow, I can say from my own experience, nice, interesting shops with Armenian goods are opening, where they can be bought at moderate prices. This, too, is one of the directions, of the projections of the Customs Union, with regard to certain consumers and certain areas of the Armenian economy, which are in demand in Russia and other countries of the Customs Union and for which the market of the Customs Union is traditional”, Areshev said.
According to him, “the main types of Armenian export products to Europe are raw materials, raw copper-molybdene, gold-ferrous raw materials, etc. The problem is that during twenty years of our independent development the common chains of highly technological production that existed in the Soviet Union, and I would like to remind you that Armenia was one of the "technological" republics of the Soviet Union as well as, incidentally, Ukraine, have fairly seriously been damaged. And now they have to be rebuilt. And the Customs Union, in my opinion, should create conditions for this process. Europe will not do that, it does not need it”.
