By Armen Zakarian
A Washington-based political analyst thinks the European Union’s new policy for the South Caucasus holds out a good opportunity for Armenia to balance its declared foreign policy based on the principles of complementarity, which he says has shown some signs of bias lately. Speaking at a seminar organized in Yerevan by the Eurointegration NGO today, June 14, Richard Giragosian expressed the opinion that the EU’s new neighborhood program in the South Caucasus opens a variety of possibilities for Armenia, including those of overcoming its economic isolation, strengthening stability and security and deepening regional integration.
But importantly, in his opinion, this policy might help Armenia restore balance in its foreign policy.
Giragosian also welcomes this program “because it helps Armenia to become more integrated into the globalized world economy.”
Nevertheless, he sees both opportunities and risks in it.
Giragosian expressed the opinion that the South Caucasus may turn into an arena for competition between the United States and the European Union. And in this case, according to him, Armenia’s task will be not to miss the opportunity to “exploit” this competition as far as possible.
Eurointegration NGO Chairman Karen Bekarian thinks that the role and importance of the EU’s new neighborhood program in some cases is even overestimated.
“If we try to simply analyze the new neighborhood policy we will see on the one hand that it is a direct continuation of the operating programs with opportunities for their boost, but on the other hand we will see some element of uncertainty,” he said in his speech.