Armenian National Platform issues a statement on EU-Armenia relations

The Armenian National Platform (ANP) of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) Civil Society Forum (CSF) acknowledges the Vilnius Summit as an important event that enabled to “check the realities,” to clearly and adequately formulate the achievements, failures, ambitions, and the degree of responsibility of every individual partner country and the European Union.

The Summit finally recorded the failure of the last years' policy of the RA, aiming at association with EU. In fact, refusing from European integration and choosing another integration model, Armenia ended up losing the most noticeable opportunity for taking its statehood on a new qualitative level and stepped on a track full of threats to Armenia’s sovereignty and national security. The possibilities for reforms in democratic institutions, human rights and other spheres became limited as a result the U-turn of the RA authorities.

CSF ANP once again restates that:

- The decision regarding joining the Customs Union and participation in the formation of the Eurasian Union, thus, respectively, the refusal to initial the Association Agreement with EU, was made without proper coordination with the RA state bodies and discussions with the society.

- The almost four-months long appeals by the Armenian National Platform of EaP CSF to the Armenian authorities to include this issue in the RA National Assembly’s agenda hold parliamentary hearings and present to the civil society the grounds for such a decision have been ignored. Not only the ruling coalition, but also the legislative body as a whole, demonstrated no interest or motivation in discussing this matter.

- Investigations of severe violence against civic activists Haykak Arshamyan and Suren Saghatelyan after the protest action held on September 5 to oppose joining the Customs Union, as well as that of other similar cases, are being conducted without the application of necessary means to clear the crimes.

- The repressions of the authorities against the participants of the December 2, 2013 action aimed at the protection of the RA’s sovereignty, particularly, the detention of 110 activists and summoning them to police stations, were unprecedented in terms of their disproportionality and violated the citizens’ rights to assembly and freedom of expression.

- The consequences of failed initialing of the Association Agreement and the movement towards the Customs Union – the humiliating gas agreements, the restrictions of pluralism in media outlets being under the control of the authorities, especially on the air of Public TV, the revision of the status of the RA state language and other similar trends are already troubling.

Full statement