President Serzh Sargsyan receives his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Demotix/ PHOTOLURE News Agency. All rights reserved
The EU-Armenia entanglement: Failed relations and the shadow of a new approach
In the wake of a positive conclusion to negotiations between Armenia and the EU on an association agreement it seemed that Armenia could start to look forward to radical economic and political benefits. Since September 3 2013, however, Armenia has been involved in an economically uncertain, politically untrustworthy and artificially established Eurasian Economic Union (EAU). This politically embarrassing act emerged from Vladimir Putin’s desire to prevent Armenia’s forthcoming integration with the West. He did this by employing a policy of coercion and military-economic intimidation vis-a-vis Yerevan. In turn, this forced Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to join the EAU, which was undeniably a catalyst for the deep economic crisis and political failure that inevitably led Armenia to collapse as a whole.
In light of this, the date “September 3” has gradually acquired the meaning of political fiasco in Armenia. Where the European path of the country and persuasiveness of overwhelming Europeanisation had been at the core of the state’s internal and external policies since gaining independence in 1991, now, given the engagement with the Eurasian Union and its incompatibilities with the Western political-economic framework, Armenia has conspicuously less room for further cooperation with the EU.
