According to the minister, there are certain risks connected with the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the CU: “Kyrgyzstan, unlike Armenia, has a common border with the CU and the united economic space. And it is important for us to prevent o the territory of the CU. It means investment of huge resources into improving the foreign borders of the CU, i.e. Kyrgyzstan's foreign border. We have to conduct a lot of arrangements for development of market and institutional infrastructure in Armenia hytosanitary control. The road map includes a
issues in detail, and we have to solve them,” she explained.
y to “vote with their feet”
By Vestnik Kavkaza
Tatyana Valovaya, Integration and Macroeconomics Minister of the Eurasian Economic Union, explains the reasons why Armenia is the main candidate for accession to the EaEU at the moment. According to her, Kyrgyzstan has a long way to go before joining the integration community.
“Thinking about an opportunity for extension of the Eurasian Economic Union, we always analyzed the experience of the European Union in detail. We believe that preservation of the balance between intensification of integration and extension of its geographical borders is the main condition for successfully establishing the EaEU. That’s why, before stepping beyond the trio, we had to improve our economic cooperation and sign the agreement on the union. Now we have made the step toward development of integration, and we can really speak about a certain extension. Considering the experience of the EU, we have no goal to extend for extension, dealing with aggressive marketing, attracting new members or trying to increase the number of participants in our union for making it seem a big one. We have an absolutely different goal. We should provide an extension that would be qualitative and favorable both for the initial members of the union and the states which decide to join us. Considering the criteria, we treat such decisions very carefully. The main candidate is Armenia. We hope that, according to decisions made by our presidents, all necessary procedures will be completed by July 1st regarding Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union.”
Tatyana Valovaya explained why priority is placed on Armenia: “Why is it Armenia? Despite the fact that Armenia falls behind the EaEU, due to its small size, Armenia has a similar quality of economy, market infrastructure, and institutional reforms to the countries of the Customs Union and the united economic space. Sometimes it surpasses them. According to the Doing Business Rating, Armenia takes a higher place than any of the members of the trio. And this is important for us. As we have declared that the principle of our union is competition of national jurisdictions, and we want our national jurisdictions to develop, barriers to decrease; the motivation could be an opportunity to “vote with their feet” for businesses, shifting from a more unfriendly jurisdiction to a more favorable one. That’s why joining the state with favorable market infrastructure and institutional reforms is very important.”
Moreover, the minister emphasized that the accession of Armenia to the Customs Union is necessary, as the Armenian economy and the economy of the Union’s countries supplement each other: “We can see that the Armenian economy and the economy of the Union supplement each other. Armenia is a state which traditionally develops the sphere of agriculture; today it is being improved and producing ecologically clean produce that is in demand. At the same time, the region is developing modern technologies, information technologies and communications. We can see the mutual supplement of our economies.”
Tatyana Valovaya also thinks that Armenia’s accession to the EaEU will be beneficial for attracting investments: “We are sure that the accession of Armenia will increase the investment attraction of the country; it will be a field for attraction of investments from the states of the Customs Union and other foreign countries. We believe it will be a benefit for all the states of the CU and the united economic space, which will establish the EaEU in January. By the way, we can see that turning a state into a field for investments in experience of the CU and the united economic space, as for example such a branch as machinery engineering was established in Kazakhstan from scratch.”
Valovaya spoke about further development of the CU: “The next candidate for accession is Kyrgyzstan. We have started negotiations with Kyrgyzstan a bit earlier, but the volume of problems which have to be solved is huge.”
According to the minister, there are certain risks connected with the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the CU: “Kyrgyzstan, unlike Armenia, has a common border with the CU and the united economic space. And it is important for us to prevent penetration of goods from third countries to the territory of the CU. It means investment of huge resources into improving the foreign borders of the CU, i.e. Kyrgyzstan's foreign border. We have to conduct a lot of arrangements for development of market and institutional infrastructure in Armenia in the sphere of customs administration, technical regulation, phytosanitary control. The road map includes a description of the issues in detail, and we have to solve them,” she explained.
