By Erik Davtyan (11/11/2014 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On October 9-10, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan paid a working visit to Minsk to take part in a session of the Council of Heads of the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). After the CIS summit, Sargsyan participated in a session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, during which he signed the agreement on Armenia’s accession to the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Thanking the heads of states for their political support in this process, the Armenian president assured that Armenia “will show a high sense of responsibility towards its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union” and expressed the hope that the heads of the EEU member countries will facilitate the ratification of the agreement in their national parliaments till the end of this year. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin expressed his deep conviction that “Armenia is ready to work equally with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus in the framework of the EEU.”

The process of Armenia’s accession to the EEU started more than a year ago, after it was declared as a foreign policy objective in Sargsyan’s statement on “Armenia’s desire to get accessed to the Customs Union,” made on September 3, 2013. Considering that the statement was made on the threshold of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, where Armenia was expected to initial an Association Agreement with the EU, it represented a turning point of Armenian foreign policy.

The post-soviet direction of Armenian foreign policy and especially Armenian-Russian relations is one of the most debated topics in Armenian politics and Armenia’s accession to the EEU was given highly diverse verdicts from different observers. According to Aram Safarian, president of the NGO Integration and Development, Armenia’s “accession to the EEU will reinforce the security of Armenia and will present Armenia’s stance in the region in a more favorable way.” The same view was shared by economist Ashot Tavadian, a member of the Scientific Council of the Eurasian Bank. In an interview to Armenian daily Hayots Ashkharh, Tavadian said that if it would have remained outside the EEU, Armenia would have faced serious challenges in the spheres of energy, direct investments and export.

The agreement, signed on October 10, was closely scrutinized by Armenia’s political parties. According to the deputy of the Prosperous Armenia (PA) party’s faction of the National Assembly, Stepan Margaryan, PA favors any integration process that Armenia can join. In an interview to Zhoghovurd daily, Shirak Torosyan, a member of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, emphasized that there are currently no beneficial alternatives to the Eurasian market, and believed that especially the customs regulations that will be introduced in the EEU members will be economically beneficial for Armenia.

In contrast, the Heritage party is the only political party that strongly disapproves of the Eurasian vector in Armenia’s foreign policy. Expressing their viewpoint to Tert.am, members of the Heritage Faction in the National Assembly, Tevan Poghosyan and Alexander Arzoumanian said their faction is against Armenia’s participation in Eurasian integration processes and will vote against the ratification of the agreement.

The former head of the Armenia’s National Security Service Davit Shahnazaryan stated in an interview to Aravot that since Armenia has little economic cooperation and actually shares no common borders with the other members of the EEU, Armenia will face economic challenges that could lead to a significant economic decline and a deterioration in living conditions. Moreover, some experts insist that the October 10 agreement was unconstitutional. Artak Zeynalyan and Daniel Ioannisyan, respectively representing the NGOs Rule of Right and Union of Informed Citizens, claim that certain clauses of Armenia’s Constitution do not allow the partial delegation of state sovereignty to other institutions.

Commenting on the possible effects of Armenia’s EEU membership on regional geopolitics, the founding director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC), Richard Giragosian, said that Armenia’s accession to the EEU may have a negative impact on Armenian-Georgian relations, as well as on the prospect for opening the border between Turkey and Armenia. According to political scientist Levon Shirinyan, Armenia should take advantage of its EEU membership and avoid the challenges. The expert believes that “Armenia can become a scientific-industrial unit which will serve the economic, scientific and technical market of the Eurasian Union.”