Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian praised the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and reaffirmed Armenia’s continued membership in the Russian-led trade bloc as he visited its headquarters in Moscow on Friday.
Pashinian met with the Armenian head of the EEU’s executive body, Tigran Sarkisian, and its key members three weeks after his country assumed the EEU’s rotating presidency.
“In the past years the Eurasian Economic Union has proved its viability,” he said at the meeting. “A positive dynamic has been registered in the main economic indicators and important decisions have been made regarding many directions of Eurasian integration.”
In a separate appeal to the leaders of Russia and the EEU’s three other member states read out at the meeting, Pashinian said: “Armenia will make every effort to maintain the positive dynamic of integration and to accomplish tasks that could give an additional impetus to economic growth in our countries.”
In particular, Pashinian went on, the Armenian government will strive for a harmonization of their economic regulations which he said are currently hampering greater trade among the member states. He also voiced support for the EEU’s free-trade deals planned or already signed with other nations, including China and India.
According to Armenian government data, in January-November 2018 Russia and other ex-Soviet states making up the bloc accounted for 27 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade, compared with the European Union’s 25 percent share in the total.
Pashinian criticized Armenia’s accession to the EEU and even called for its withdrawal from the bloc as recently as in November 2017. However, immediately after he swept to power in May 2018 he made clear that he will not pull his country out of the EEU or the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Pashinian was asked about his past position on the issue at a news conference held at the EEU headquarters. “You know that when I was a member of the [former Armenian] parliament I voted against that decision [to join the EEU,]” he replied. “Since then I have repeatedly said that just because we had thought that it’s a wrong decision doesn’t mean we need to take diametrically opposite actions in order to correct that mistake.”
“U.S. President Barack Obama thought that President [George W.] Bush was wrong to invade Iraq and so he decided to … withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. And what did we get? We got the Islamic State,” he said.
“The fact is that Armenia is a member of the EEU and I don’t think that U-turns are good in international affairs. And as you can see, our efforts now are aimed at making the EEU more effective,” added Pashinian.
In that regard, the Armenian premier made a case for setting up a common EEU market for natural gas and other fuel. He was understood to imply that Russian gas should be as cheap in Russia as it is in Armenia and other EEU members importing it.
Russia’s Gazprom giant raised its wholesale gas price for Armenia on January 1. Pashinian’s government is now negotiating with Armenia’s Gazprom-owned gas distribution network in hopes of keeping its internal retail tariffs unchanged.
Pashinian expressed confidence on Friday that the existing gas prices set for Armenian households and corporate consumers will not go up this year. He again insisted that his government will not be subsidizing it.
The gas issue was high on the agenda of Pashinian’s most recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin held in Moscow on December 27. The two men held further discussions on it by phone in the following days.
Pashinian was not scheduled to meet with Putin during his latest trip to the Russian capital. He was due to hold talks instead with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev later in the day.
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