"Armenia has no plans to withdraw from the EAEU”

“The process of joining the EU is a parallel agenda. Our task is not to discuss these agendas, but to raise the resilience and competitiveness of our economy. It does not matter whether Armenia will be in the EU or the EAEU, we must increase our economy’s competitiveness,” he said during a press conference.

The minister said “under no circumstances are we considering replacing the EAEU with any other structure.”

“Armenia’s economy must be independent. We want to be independent, and independence means to depend on everyone, not just one, and at the same time everyone depends on you to some extent. We should become a state that if something happens to us, it will affect the economies of other countries, and in this case nothing will happen to us,” said Gevorg Papoyan.

Last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said that Russia views the start of Armenia’s discussions on the bill launching the process of the EU accession as the beginning of the country’s withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

He noted that Moscow “will build its economic policy towards Armenia taking into account this circumstance.”

“The EAEU and the EU are incompatible, as both unions assume the absence of customs borders and free movement of goods, services, capital and workforce. To imagine that these two unions will converge at some point is impossible. That is why the bill on launching EU accession process places Armenia before a choice,” he explained.