Parliament Vice Speaker says opposition’s EEU withdrawal initiative is artificial

Vice Speaker of Armenia’s Parliament Eduard Sharmazanov finds the opposition’s initiative on withdrawing the country from the EEU to be artificial. Ealirer the opposition Yelk faction had presented an initiative on cancelling Armenia’s membership to the Eurasian Economic Union.

Sharmazanov stressed that any political force presents its foreign policy priorities ahead of elections, and receives votes accordingly. “At least 3 of the 4 political forces in the Parliament are in favor of Armenia’s membership to the Eurasian Economic Union, while I don’t recall the Yelk faction openly talk about withdrawing from the EEU during elections. It’s even unclear, if they were to declare intentions on withdrawing from the EEU – would they overcome the 7% threshold or not”, he said.

According to Sharmazanov, the majority of Armenia’s population is also in favor of Armenia’s membership to the EEU, which was confirmed during the election. “This is one of the unique issues where both the ruling party and the majority of the opposition agree that it was a correct decision”, he said.

In his view, while discussing the withdrawal from the EEU, it is necessary to argue what damages Armenia will have in case of leaving the structure, rather what the EEU has given to Armenia.

“Did you calculate the damages if we were to leave the EEU? The gas price alone for Armenia’s industries dropped by more than 30 dollars. Armenia’s economic benefit from the gas price decrease alone is greater than it would be if we were to sign the free trade agreement with the EU. And this is stated by European experts”, he said.