ARMENIA’S EUROPEAN PROSPECT: ILLUSION OR CREDO

Civilitas Foundation
Thursday, 12 November 2009 22:31 |

The Civilitas Foundation’s monthly public debate focused on Armenia’s
prospects and obstacles in European integration and cooperation
processes. The debate was moderated by Tatul Hakobyan, journalist
and Civilitas analyst, with panel participants, Tevan Poghosyan,
Executive Director of the International Center for Human Development,
as well as Nune Sargsyan, Executive Director of Internews Armenia.

During the discussion, Mr. Vartan Oskanian, President of the Board of
the Civilitas Foundation, said the following, "I am confident that
Armenia has no other choice but European integration. But in order
to be able to integrate, we need three-way cooperation among Europe,
Armenian society and the Armenian authorities. If this trilateral
cooperation doesn’t work right, or all sides don’t participate, these
processes will never come to a successful conclusion, and our people
will not benefit from them. Let’s leave aside membership issues for
a while. I have always said, even during my years in office, that
it is the process, not the membership itself that our people need
to benefit from, such that the population feels positive change as
a result of this cooperation, every day of their lives.

We need to demand from the Europeans that they be more serious about
their involvement. Europeans have to be more consistent in demanding
that Armenia fulfill its obligations whether regarding cooperation with
the EU, the Council of Europe, OSCE or NATO. These are obligations
that we have taken, and Europe – whether that means Eurocrats or a
broader Europe, doesn’t really matter – has to be more consistent in
expecting that obligations are met.

Secondly, our society has to be more demanding in their everyday
lives. The people’s unprompted claim to their rights is commensurate
with all things European. If we can be consistent in our everyday lives
in pursuing those values, we will put pressure on the government to
fulfill their commitments.

But the most important of the three is the government. I have been part
of the government, and one of the reasons why I decided not to remain
there any longer, is that it was already very difficult to explain to
the Europeans why our actions differ so much from our commitments. That
problem always existed, especially after elections when there were
some undemocratic developments in Armenia. You can imagine the plight
of the foreign minister every time the issue was brought up in Europe.

This last link, the government and its faith in European values, is
essential. My experience has shown that our successive governments
have not been prepared to fully adopt and apply these values. They
have at best been very selective.

There are two problems here. First: the authorities have regarded
the full adoption and application of European values as a threat
to their power. This will remain the case until we manage to create
appropriate checks and balances in our political system. Democracy,
human rights, free media will always be regarded by the authorities
as a threat to their monopoly of power.

The second problem is that all those years, people within the
government who had real power to bring real reform and change, did
not truly believe in European values, for various reasons: Soviet
influence, a way of thinking, education. Thus these two factors
have kept all Armenian governments from seriously engaging in these
processes. European values do not come with frequent official travels
to Paris and Brussels. We have to be able to bring the environment
of Paris and Brussels here, to our country. And it is essential, that
in those seats of authority where the real power lies to effectively
implement real reforms, that those seats be occupied by people for
whom these values are natural, inborn, who completely believe in
these values, and don’t think whether they might threaten their power."