Actually, being a political structure, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) has little in common with economy or a union, Director of the Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan said at the Caucasus-2015 international conference in Yerevan on May 30.
"In this light, the economic problems of Armenia, including the ones in 2015, were due to the dependency of the Armenian economy on the Russian one rather than due to Armenia's EEU membership. Armenia experienced the negative impact of the decline in oil prices, the Russian ruble crash, and the West's sanctions against Russia. All these factors would certainly affect our country regardless of its integration preferences," he said.
When commenting on EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini's 7 Dec 2015 statement about the launch of the new phase of Armenia-EU negotiations, Iskandaryan said that Brussels has realized the new political realities around Armenia. He thinks that Mogherini confirmed the EU's willingness to develop cooperation with Yerevan without the economic component.
"As regards the April war around Karabakh, I can say that the prerequisites for the war were ready in 2015 - last year's escalation, which was unprecedented by the scale and types of the military hardware, created prerequisites for the April 2016 war. So, the year 2016 has become the logical continuation of the year 2015," he noted.
The two-day event covers the political trends in the Caucasus, the regional security and international policy problems. On May 31 a two-hour roundtable will be held to cover the political consequences and results of Azerbaijan's aggression against Karabakh in April.