MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly submitted an agreement on the Eurasian Economic Union to the Russian parliament for ratification, Itar-Tass reports, quoting the Kremlin’s press office.
The agreement on the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union was signed by the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan on May 29, 2014, in Astana.
The agreement is the basic document defining the accords between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan for creating the Eurasian Economic Union for the free movement of goods, services, capital and workforce and conducting coordinated or common policies in key sectors of the economy, such as energy, industry, agriculture and transport.
The agreement stipulates the transition of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to the next stage of integration after the Customs Union and the common economic space.
The agreement on the Eurasian Economic Union is set to come into force on the territory of the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan from January 1, 2015.
Putin has also approved the government’s proposal for Armenia’s accession to the treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union.
The Russian president approved the government’s proposal on signing the corresponding agreement with Armenia, the Kremlin’s website said.
The Russian president’s instruction “deems it expedient to sign the Agreement at a session of the Higher Eurasian Economic Council at the level of the heads of state,” the document said.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev cancelled a planned visit to Yerevan that was expected to focus on Armenia’s membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) reported, quoting Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamian.
Abrahamian announced Medvedev’s trip, scheduled for September 8-9, on August 19, more than a month after the two men met in the Russian city of Sochi.
Abrahamian clarified on Monday that the Russian premier was supposed to arrive in the Armenian capital along with his counterparts from the two other EEU member states: Belarus and Kazakhstan. They had “tentatively” agreed to discuss the concrete terms of Armenia’s membership in the Russia-led bloc, he said.
Abrahamian told reporters that prime ministerial talks will not take place because “the matter [has] been transferred to the level of the presidents,” RFE/RL reports. “As you know, [Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan] Nazarbayev has stated that the [Kazakh, Russian and Belarusian] presidents will gather in Minsk on October 10,” he said.
One of the issues on the agenda of the Minsk summit is the signing of the accession treaty with Armenia that Putin approved, drafted in June by the EEU’s executive body, the Eurasian Economic Commission.
Both Belarus and Kazakhstan have been less enthusiastic about Armenia’s entry into the EEU than Russia, and the signing of the treaty before the end of this year is therefore not a forgone conclusion. It remains to be seen whether Yerevan’s membership bid will be further complicated by what appears to be friction between Moscow and Astana.
On Aug. 25, Nazarbayev told a Kazakh TV channel that he will not hesitate to pull his country out of the EEU if it poses a “threat to our independence.” In what some observers see as a stark warning to Kazakhstan’s longtime ruler, Putin publicly said four days later that the Kazakhs “had never had statehood” before the Soviet collapse and that most of them favor closer ties with Russia.
Thank you Mr President!
Hooray!! We finally got the blessing from the Alpha and Omega himself.
Just another notch on Tsar Putin’s belt towards his goal of creating the perfect Armenian Oblast.
The final kiss of death. Our enemies should rejoice: our transition from statehood to oblast has begun.
this is a mess. putin says ” Kazakhs “had never had statehood” what kind of language is that. I dont like Kazaks but i got to agree with them that if indeed our independence is in danger we should get out of it fast.
free-trade with europe has been sliped from our fingers and we can never go back to it. if so it will take a long time. I hope putin clears up hes comments on what hey said to kazaks becouse now many more countries would begin to doubt. the best thing for Armenia to do is to trust nobody.
If God only gave Armenia the strenght they deserved for a long time now, to rise up to be respected and feared we would have spitten on everyone’s face. for they so-called justice towards our country. The only way to achieve this is to support Armenia by helping to boost up their economy, education,and trade. We should be all sending Armenia money each month. Like the world is sending their money to poor people from african countries each month. We should stop blaming Armenia for everything, and we must be cleared up becouse Armenian dont see anymore what is wrong and right.
I agree
We are ancient nation. our history very old and there is still much to discover about it, about who we “hay” people are. thank to Turks our history has many holes. and thankes to modern technology that our history yet has a change to be recovering. We are one or probably the oldest nation in the world. thats something to think about. traces of our past and language can be found in ancient kingdom more than 5000 years ago even the Hay people. This is our pride, we must use our pride in order to rise. There should be no nation in the world teach us a lesson.
I still believe that one day tsovits tsov hayastan will become reality again if we only be smart.
Armenians should start a world wide campaign to urge Armenians to donate every month to Armenia.
Donations are temporary solutions. Armenia has serious institutional problems, most notably, corruption, and that seeps into every sector of public life there from tourism, to advertising, to government and military, and everything else you can imagine. Even in the charity sector, do you really believe everything we send there is actually getting to the people? How many more “Save Gyumri” telethons are we going to have until we realize that it’s the government’s job to help its citizens? How many citizens could the government have helped had it chosen not to fly to South Korea to get a six-figure facial? Donating is not helpful, and if anything, it only perpetuates the oligarchs’ indifference towards critical factors in Armenia’s development such as infrastructure. They continue to plunder the economy knowing that diasporans like me and you will unconditionally contribute to basic governmental functions like building a simple road or providing assistance to victims of an earthquake.
and i also hope this costum-union will have a great economical future for Armenia. afterall there is no other choice if we want to survive as a nation from the Turks. but this should be considered temporary.
It wont. It’s already been determined that it will isolate Armenia from its main source to the outside world, Georgia, and will limit us to only Russia. Not to mention that ridiculous customs duties will force prices to skyrocket. I’m glad the cracks are already starting to show, and I hope this Custom Union garbage fades away into obscurity where it belongs.
Otherwise we will be forced to be shunned with them before the entire world, and our idiot government, lacking foresight, completely did not see the dangers of getting involved too much with any one country.
God bless Mother Russia.
Sarcasm.
this is death of poor armenian under the russian rule so bad
Congratulations. This the best step the Armenian Government has taken.
Another sarcasm.
i hope the union will be a succes i believe it will. i also wonder what happend to the 5 year plan of Armenian military moderazation.
Without Russia Armenia would have belonged to Turkey a long time ago, under the blessing of the US and EU.
but i still respect Russia thousends times more the the USA which will help Armenia to the ground and wars.
Russia will not help in the case of renewed warfare. If anything, it will be a the key facilitator of that war. Not to worry, they will still have the “respect” of all Armenians, as an entity that saves you one hand then punishes you with the other.
For all those who constantly say that Armenia will be better off with EU and with the rest of the “civilised” western world should just take a look what this EU with the help of US done to Greece,Spain,Italy,Portugal,Ireland. I am not even mentioning the Romania,Bulgaria. Baltic states and Poland are almost empty due to lack of work and poverty. They all flooded UK and other more or less “wealthy” states for housecleaning ,construction,low paid manual jobs. Stop lying to Armenians that EU or US is paradise on earth. This was the same lie you told Armenians before the break up of the Soviet Union that West will help Armenia by building it up which never really happened. There are more Armenians living in Russia than in Armenia itself and most of them are doing more or less ok. Armenia is natural resource poor nation except it’s people. It will always rely on more powerful nations, be it for political,economical or military support. Yes it’s not ideal to be in the union with Kazakhstan but having Russia as it’s backer is a great help. And stop confusing USSR Communist Russia to modern day Russia or even Tsarist Russia. And I am very sorry Sir poster by the name “Armenian” you have a very poor knowledge on Russia and that it has also suffered from the communists just like many others in USSR. You also forget the element of the Fifth column in Russia and Armenia which is bleeding them both dry just like in many other nations.
I also forgot to mention that the fact that few very powerful nations want to leave EU due to loss of independence to Brussels. The issue of national sovereignty is a big one in some if not most European nations. I suggest pragmatic but at the very same time friendly relationship with Russia and with other nations. We can’t change our geographical location but what we can do is clean up our country from these corrupt,money grabbing businessmen and politicians. We are living in globalist world which is moving closer and closer to dictatorial one world government.
‘Armen’, umm – what? ‘We are living in globalist world which is moving closer and closer to dictatorial one world government’. Is that genuinely what you think?