EURASEC MEMBERSHIP WILL HAMPER ARMENIA’S INTEGRATION WITH EUROPE

Yerevan, August 22. ArmInfo. EURASEC membership will hamper Armenia’s
integration with Europe, said to ArmInfo correspondent political
scientist Sergey Sarkisian, member of the SPECTRUM center.

To the opinion of the analyzer, delaying the talks with the WTO Russia
enhanced its activity in EURASEC. The latter, being founded in 2000,
provides establishment free trade regime and single tax tariff between
its member states. It also requires its members to make agree their
programs with the WTO. S. Sarkisian said that in spite of all critics,
EURASEC in the most progressive of all organization of the post-Soviet
area. The last EURASEC summit made a decision to establish a Customs
Treaty of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, which later can be joined
by the rest of EURASEC members. Mr. Sarkisian said that membership in
both WTO and EURASEC is possible due to applying the loss compensation
mechanism. The political scientist emphasized the decision of the
last summit about creating a unified energy market. Unification of
transport and energy carriers tariffs and including in its structure
Ukraine and Uzbekistan will provide EURASEC the opportunity of becoming
the heir of CIS. He did not exclude the opportunity of merging EURASEC
and CIS into one.

To the opinion of Sergey Sarkisian the EURASEC will permit
to establish much higher preferences for energy than bilateral
partner agreements. He considers that this organization provides
Russia a brilliant opportunity of starting the integration of the
post-Soviet states into a single organization with political and
military implication and an essential economic background. Taking into
consideration all the abovementioned facts Armenia, Armenia cannot
remain just a spectator in EURASEC, being an active member of the
CSTO. On the other hand the EURASEC membership may hamper Armenia’s
integration in EU, that is why the Armenian diplomacy must use all
its skill to find the balance between the West and the EURASEC.