Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

Yesterday, at the National Assembly of the RA, the draft law concerning EU membership was adopted in the first reading. Civic.am talked about the topic with Artur Sakunts, the chairman of Helsinki Citizens Assembly-Vanadzor.

A.Sakunts considers this process as a positive step. At the same time, he mentions that he disagrees with some of the approaches of the representatives of the majority of the National Assembly, mentioning that this is not a process of leaving the EAEU. The latter considers it sophistry and contradicts that this is hence a process of leaving the EAEU.  

According to Sakunts, “If you take the commitment to start the process of EU membership, then it is not possible to implement that process if you do not plan to parallelly start a process of leaving the EAEU. 

“As the EU membership is not an immediate process, as well as the EAEU leaving process. Yes, in nature and in life, you can not fly from one point to another at once. You can not be in two places at the same time, it is not a quantum mechanic. Thus, it must be mentioned rightly and truly that the EU membership process will inevitably cause problems for the EAEU membership and it means that the EU membership process will inevitably result in the process of leaving the EAEU and thus in the termination at some point”, said Artur Sakunts.  

When asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, being the first to react to the Armenian Parliament’s decision—stating that it is Armenia’s sovereign right while subtly hinting at potential risks — our interviewee responded “When Kremlin and RF spokespersons talk about sovereignty, of course, it is nonsense, as especially former Soviet territory countries do not consider that they can be sovereign at all, moreover they consider that those states should obey either to Kremlin or EU or the USA. 

Details in the video, 

Civic.am

Lilit Tadevosyan