The Armenia-Georgia good-neighbored relations may well become a link between the EU and EEU, Beka Natsvilishvili, one of Georgia's Social- Democratic Party leaders, said in an online interview with ArmInfo.
"We should not discard Russia's factor. The pressure Moscow exerted on Armenia to make it align with the EEU was not a result of its fears to lose Armenia as an economic partner. There were other fears - the fear to lose the South Caucasus as a whole region, amid attractive offers of the European Union, and the fear to lose the military base in Armenia," he said.
According to Natsvilishvili, the governments of both Georgia and Armenia need to display a more creative approach to the new investment opportunities, production in Georgia, free access to the European market that will Armenian companies receive in case of signing a DCFTA with Georgia. The political expert is sure that the positive sides of Georgia's joining the Association Agreement with the EU overshadow the negative ones. He outlined such factors as cooperation in the field of political reform, culture and education, visa regulations, free movement for citizens and companies. He believes that the economic reform will be the most complicated undertaking, considering that under Saakashvili, economic reforms were oriented at total de-regulation of economic relations. "Meanwhile, what investors need is stable rules of the game, qualified human resources, and adequate infrastructures," he said.
"The most important thing about DCFTA is that it opens a 500 million market to Georgia. This is a big stimulus for production development in Georgia. This will enable the country raise investments from the non EU-countries that seek to enter the market and lack free trade regime with Europe," he said. The press conference is organized as part of the Region Research Center's project "Relevant Dialogues for Armenia Media."