Armenia-EU agreement may be signed next year: Polish analyst
“Russian officials painfully accept Armenia-EU relations and negotiations, which we may consider as an index how deep Armenia-EU relations will be,” Konrad Zasztowt, political analyst at Polish Institute of International Relations (Warsaw), told 168.am. Piotr Świtalski, Head of EU Delegation to Armenia, these days stated that new Armenian Government regards boosting economic growth as axis of its action plan, and the EU is ready to support Armenian Government in its efforts, directed to reforms, economic transition to a more productive variant.
“One of the main tools is development of SMEs,” the Ambassador said. He also stated that foreign investments are also important. “We are sure that numerous events, including new framework agreement between Armenia and the EU, interstate reforms in Armenia, will be helpful in engaging more foreign investments, in particular, from the EU member states,” Ambassador Świtalski said.
Konrad Zasztowt stated that the EU attempts to invest its experience in developing trade-economic field, directing its support to Armenia in a targeted way. In his words, these topics, to all likelihood, have been more actively discussed by the EU on account of the fact that Armenia and the EU reached to negotiations, which refer to the trade and investments sector.
“Currently it’s the most important component of Armenia-EU relations, on account of existence of the EEU, as well as Armenia-EU cooperation levels in this field, i.e. there is a contrast, the EU is number one investor in Armenia, however, it turned out that the EU and Armenia should adapt their relations in this field with EEU regulations. However, I consider, everything isn’t that bad, if diplomats appear with statements on its perspectives,” Konrad Zasztowt said.
According to the latter, negotiations around trade and investments will take considerable time from the sides, on account of bureaucracy and the fact that Armenia should agree these steps also with EEU. Zasztowt considers if political component of the forthcoming agreement was negotiated around a year, then negotiations on this component will last longer. “We should take into consideration that in the Association Agreement it was separate: Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, and in this case former agreements should be reduced and included in the forthcoming agreement by a few points or components, which isn’t easily and quickly implemented,” the Polish analyst said. However, according to the latter, one may hope that Armenia-EU forthcoming agreement will be signed next year without hindrances.
According to Zasztowt there won’t be any issues, as all provisions of the agreement, to all likelihood, have been discussed with possible preventive sides, all possible risks have been taken into consideration, including Armenia’s membership to EEU. “If you noticed, recently and generally, in case of Armenia Russian officials don’t painfully perceive Armenia-EU relations and negotiations. We may consider this as an indicator how deep Armenia-EU relations may be,” Polish analyst concluded.
By Araks Martirosyan
