Visa facilitation deal is all Armenia can get from EU: expert

PanARMENIAN.Net - At present, the main threat to the Sochi Olympiad success emanates from the Nagorno Karabakh conflict region, a political analyst said.

According to Alexander Skakov, the conflict will inevitably destabilize the situation in adjacent regions of Georgia and Northern Caucasus to further affect the safety as well as moral and physiological environment of the 2014 Olympiad.

“Clearly, the escalation of conflict will put an end to the OSCE Minsk Group’s mediation activities, showcasing its complete inconsistency. However, there seem to be no other volunteers to assume responsibility for the future of the Caucasus. Potentially, CSTO, EU or NATO could do the job. CSTO’s lack of clear agenda makes it hard to determine the organization’s potential. The dangers of NATO’s regional presence have already been suggested, leaving EU as the only candidate, with its much-hyped Eastern Partnership project.

With Belarus and Azerbaijan left outboard, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova became the locomotives in the Eastern Partnership integration initiative, setting certain hopes on a possible EU membership. European officials, however, strongly question that possibility.

With no legal document expected to be signed in Eastern Partnership framework, the only thing Armenia can hope for is the visa regime facilitation deal,” the expert noted.

Free trade zone could also be an attractive possibility, however the latter requires production of competitive goods for the European market. However, should the deal work, EU would get a chance to reduce the expansion of the Eurasian Union, also decreasing Russia’s spere of influence, the expert concluded.