“The consultations of the program activities for the European Neighborhood Policy are over and we can consider them a success. This was stated in the announcement of Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan and head of the European Union “Trio” delegation and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland Erkki Tuomioya.
The program activities’ document will be signed in November in Brussels. According to V. Oskanyan, the purpose of the joint-press conference and the signing of the document were so that “Armenians could be a part of this historical event.” However, it’s kind of hard to say whether “society formed a part of this” or not because the document text can’t be published. “The EU proposes intensive relations with Armenia in the fields of politics, security sector, as well as economy and culture, strengthening of the cooperation between regional countries, as well as taking on the responsibility of settling and preventing regional conflicts.”
Journalists asked Oskanyan if there were any secrets of the document. V. Oskanyan rushed to say that there would simply be some reforms. Armenian society will find out about the document after it is signed in November. We can’t really predict how this document will help Armenia if we haven’t even read it yet. So, we’re forced to go along with what Oskanyan says for the time being and he speaks rather ardently. “It’s called the Activities Program and the name says it all. It’s a document stating actions to be taken, which will make the social, political and economic systems of Armenia closer to those of Europe because it’s assumed that we are all living in the same neighborhood and are working together.”
It’s worth mentioning that V. Oskanyan recalled the steps taken before R. Kocharyan came to power. “These reforms are extremely important for Armenia. We have gotten to this point thanks to the economic reforms we made since the declaration of independence” This is worth mentioning due to the fact that when you hear what the current Armenian authorities are saying, you get the impression that the history of the newly independent Armenian Republic began in 2000 and nothing had been done before that. In other words, they start Armenia’s history from the beginning of Kocharyan’s term.
The activities program is scheduled for the next five years, but as Armenians know, we have two elections coming up (parliamentary and presidential). As Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland said, those elections are very important for Armenia to take a step towards European integration. But what will happen if we see the usual electoral fraud? In that case, the five-year contract will be endangered and the consequences will be negative. However, Mr. Tuomioya preferred not to talk about that and is certain that Armenia understands that it has a responsibility.
“We know that the elections are an important standard,” said V. Oskanyan and hoped that they will be fair. I don’t really know why V. Oskanyan is that optimistic. But if we assume that everything will go as our neighbor Europe wants, then what will be the next step? Is it possible to sign another five-year contract, which will further strengthen our ties with Europe? According to the Finnish Foreign Minister, that depends on Armenia’s strive and how much we want to strengthen our relations with the European Union. But the Foreign Minister of Armenia says that we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.
“We must first pass the first stage, so that we can have the moral right to move towards strengthening firmer ties,” says V. Oskanyan. Of course, there were some questions about the Karabakh conflict. Journalists wanted to know what is stated about the Karabakh conflict in the document-is it debatable, or is it simply a land belonging to Azerbaijan. “We haven’t talked about Karabakh in the document,” said E. Tuomioya.
Journalists recalled that a while back, EU special representative in the Southern Caucasus Peter Semnebi had said that the sides had lost their opportunity to establish peace while talking about the conflict. The Finnish Foreign Minister made no comment regarding Semnebi’s announcement. Instead, he said that the EU would continue to encourage the OSCE Minsk Group to continue the process. As for the peaceful conflict settlement, Tuomioya is more optimistic than Peter Semnebi. “The window of opportunities is still open and we will encourage the sides to take advantage of that opportunity,” said the Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs.