Jaroslav Šimov

Topics: Relations between Russia and the West, now and in the future; Internal problems of the EU / UK, Greece.

The press conference was organized within the framework of  "Topical Dialogues on the New Integration Agenda of Armenia" project. This project of  Region" Research Center is supported by the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Section.

David Stepanyan (Armenia)
ArmInfo News Agency

Question:
Hello, Jaroslav. For reasons that are estimated to be objective in the current situation even inArmenia, Russia has been consistently trying to strengthen relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey. How far does the "red line" in relations with Armenia extend, the line that Moscow will not cross due to geopolitical considerations while strengthening its relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey?

Answer:
Of course, you should not ask me this question, but rather Misters Putin and Lavrov :-) But if we are to evaluate the situationfrom aside, it seems to me that it is not benefitial for Russia "to put all the eggs in one basket" in such a sensitive region as the South Caucasus. In the sense that if there is any improvement in the relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, there is no reason to sacrifice the good relations with Armenia - both ensure their own benefits. The more so because Russia has far more objective contradictions with Turkey (by the way, a member of NATO) and Azerbaijan, a friendly country to Turkey, than with Armenia.

David Stepanyan (Armenia)
ArmInfo News Agency

Answer:
It seems to me that the "Turkish Stream" is rather a symbol of Russia's presence on the southern flank of Europe after the collapse of the "South Stream". In order for this project to be successful, its consumers, i.e. European countries, need to be interested in it. Whilethere is no great interest on their part: the volume of gas supplied by Russia by other pipelines, is in fact sufficient; besides there is an active diversification of gas imports, along with the development of alternative energy sources. So I do not think that the "Turkish Stream" is going to have a bright future.

David Stepanyan (Armenia)
ArmInfo News Agency

Question:
In response to a question about the prospects of Armenia in the EEU Eurasian skeptics offer to start with talking about the deplorable future of the Eurasian integration project. What are the prospects of the EEU, from your perspective?

Answer:
I'm not an economist, so the economic details of the project are difficult for me to address. Naturally, there is a variety of relations among the participants of the EEU: the main thing isto ensure that politics does not dominate over the economy. And I think that for now this has been the case at least for the Russian leadership. The EEU is regarded as primarily a geopolitical rival to the EU, although from the technological and socio-economic point of view the backlog of the post-Soviet countries from the European Union is obvious. I think the main problem of the EEU is the lack of clear priorities: to integrate for what, at what price and with what forces?

"Hetq" online newspaper (Armenia)

Answer:
I would like to clarify: the Greek referendum of July 5 did not concern the issue of whether or not the country should remain within the EU. No one has put the question like that at all yet. The idea was whether or not the majority of Greek citizens agreed to the continuation of the financial policy led in the country within which their country has fallen into an acute debt crisis, and is to receive financial assistance from the EU and IMFunder strict conditions. I do not quite understandwhy the referendum was held now, because although 61% of Greeks voted against further cooperation with creditors, after a couple of days, Prime Minister Tsipras went to Brussels and did conclude an agreement that allows Greece to remain in the Euro zone (not the EU, as these are two different things! There are 19 countries in the Euro zone, while there are 28 in the EU), to obtain new loans, but in exchange for a pledge of many businesses and severe financial cuts. In my view, the Greek referendum would make sense only if the will of the electorate was carried out - although this would lead to the withdrawal of Greece from the EuroZone and the acute crisis in the country. As for Britain, here they will address (if you do go for the referendum, the final decision on holding a referendum is still pending) the issue of whether the country should remain within the EU. The fact that in the past Britain excused itselfwith some exceptions related to its payments to the European budget and some political issues. London now wants to expand the number of these exceptions and actually make British law a priority in relation to the European one, which is contrary to the EU rules. From an economic point of view, I understand the arguments against leaving the EU more than the pros. Yet so far, according to polls, the number of supporters and opponents of the withdrawal is roughly equal. It is another matter that in case the United Kingdom withdraws the UK may crack: pro-European sentiments unambiguously dominate in Scotland, and if Britain decides to leave the EU, Scotland, in its turn, may repeat the referendum on secession from Britain - this time with a different result from the one held last year.

David Stepanyan (Armenia)
ArmInfo News Agency

Answer:
I think the problem consists in the very form of political thinking, which assumes the existence of certain "spheres of influence" in which small countries and peoples are denied a free choice of their own path of development. On the other hand, larger and economically powerful countries will always influence their neighbors. Of course, the policy led by Moscow is marked with the desire to control the political processes in most former Soviet republics. The question is what methods are applied to achieve this control. The Soviet Union broke up almost a quarter of a century ago, and during that time Russia had time to develop into a political and economic model that could be attractive tothe neighboring countries. In order then not have to defend what the Russian leadership considers its legitimate geopolitical interests, by methods such as the ones applied in the case of the Crimea and Donbas. The current Ukrainian crisis is a big and sad proof that the post-Soviet integration has failed. The EU and the US, of course, had their own rather significant errors in regard to the policy led towards the post-Soviet countries, but it is a separate issue. If we talk about Russia, I do not think it can afford a long-term and full-scale confrontation with the Western world: that is the most unbeneficial development for Russia in the first place.

Artak Barseghyan (Armenia)
Public Radio of Armenia

Answer:
I think that the "Eastern Partnership" project has lacked the so-called “drive” in the recent years. At the same time, this initiative may be beneficial to the participating post-Soviet countries – at the moment and above all in regard to the approximation of their legislation with the European standards: in this regard, the EU is able to provide solid support. But I would not consider the "EP" as a kind of "a waiting room to the EU", from which there is a direct path to EU membership. The project does not have such tasks to solve. At least for now.

David Stepanyan (Armenia)
ArmInfo News Agency

Answer:
I unfortunately cannot give you a competent answer on that matter, because I am not an expert on the situation around Karabakh.

Artak Barseghyan (Armenia)
Public Radio of Armenia

Answer:
It seemed to me very likely last spring, but, fortunately, the worst case scenario has been averted. At this point, I believe, Russia has neither the capacity, primarily economic capacity, to deploy a large-scale aggression against Ukraine, nor, apparently, political will and desire to do it. The situation is at an impasse from the Ukrainian side, too: Ukraine is obviously incapable of restoring its sovereignty over Donbas and the Crimea by military means, the reforms in Ukraine itself are obviously stalled, and the economy is not able to function without major financial injections from the EU. I believe that the conflict in the east of Ukraine will at some point get into the smoldering stage, with sporadic exacerbations. And it will continue as long as there is no developed model for the existence of Donbass within a unified Ukraine acceptable to all interested parties, as well as some solution to the Crimea that will allow both Moscow and Kiev to "save face" (perhaps a new referendum under international control). But it's clearly not going to happen soon.

Artak Barseghyan (Armenia)
Public Radio of Armenia

Answer:
I would like to know who these "Washington hawks" are; this is an expression from the arsenal of Soviet propaganda.

Artak Barseghyan (Armenia)
Public Radio of Armenia

Answer:
EU enlargement is an issue that is still decided in Brussels, not in Washington. I think, in the light of these crises, it will be hardly possible to talk about the enlargement of the EU in the coming years, 28 countries is already a very large "club". As for NATO, in my experience, the main objective, which is now worth to be addressed by this organization is to reform its structure in response to the emerging new threats. And it means increased spending on defense and security. In particular, the compliance of most European NATO allies with the agreement on bringing the level of these expenses to at least 2% of the GDP of each country. This is an issue the US has continually remindedthe partners, and this task, I believe, is at the moment more important than further expansion. Although in the Balkans this process will continue: in particular, by the end of 2015 Montenegro may join NATO, but it is known to be a very small country; the adaptation of its armed forces to NATO standards will not require large expenditures.

Araks Martirosyan (Armenia)
The newspaper "168 Hours"

Answer:
I would not hurry to talk about the "open door" as of yet. The EU assures all the "Eastern Partnership" members of the opportunities and prospects of cooperation with them, but, based on my own experience of dialogues with European officials of different levels, as well as judging by their statements in the media, it is difficult to expect that in the coming years, the European Union will be interested in enlargingthe number its members. In the end, the EU now has, so to speak, two heavy weights on its feet: one is called Greece, the other is Ukraine. As long as these situations are not resolved in one way or another, I think that the rest of the post-Soviet countries can count on cooperation in the legal field (expertise, help in the upgrading legal practices to align with European standards, etc.), in the field of education (for example, Belarus has recently reached by agreement with the EU to join the so-called Bologna process), partly in the sphere of economy. You are right, those countries who are already members of the Eurasian Economic Union, will have to face the problem of combining these two integration schemes. I think that without a total normalization of relations between Russia as the leading country of the EEU, on the one hand, and the European Union, on the other,it will be difficult to achieve a major breakthrough in this area.

Karine Asatryan(Armenia)
TV Company «A1 +»

Answer:
Good afternoon. I see that among the questions asked there are a few related to Iran and the South Caucasus countries. Unfortunately, I cannot give any detailed answers to those questions, because I am specialized in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, the European Union and its relations with the countries of the former Soviet region. I unfortunately understand the Iranian problem poorly and do not venture to distract your attention with my essentially amateurish reasoning.

Armen Minasyan (Armenia)
Panorama.am

Answer:
I do not think - if it is a confrontation between the West and Russia. At present there is neither the Russian military-political or economic potential, which is located on the top of the Soviet Union of its power. Enough, for example, compare the current US military budget, and the Russian Federation. The current confrontation between Western countries and Russia can be considered, I think, a great misfortune, because it distracts the forces of the parties from the common global threats and deal with them. Nevertheless, the consequences of this confrontation may be more stringent for Russia than for the European Union or the United States, because of the relative weakness of the Russian Federation in comparison with the West. However, I hope that the current situation - a temporary phenomenon, the fact that last year the Kremlin still did not force the situation in Ukraine and, in particular, withdrew from the project "New Russia", said that Moscow still understand the futility of a full-scale confrontation and any semblance of "Cold War".

Armen Minasyan (Armenia)
Panorama.am

Answer:
I do not think there is any algorithm, applicable to all situations. On the other hand, in our times it is difficult to exclude one’s participation in global processes: the example of North Korea, in this sense, is not encouraging. The small countries in conflict should be especially careful in their policies and, above all, clearly realize their national interests. In this sense continuity in the foreign policy seems important to me, regardless of the people and the party retaining power or new ones coming to power. In the case of Ukraine, we see that the leaps from side to side, the shift from theposition of an almost Russian semi-colony to the romantically uncompromising pro-Western course can have dire consequences.

Armen Minasyan (Armenia)
Panorama.am

Answer:
Unfortunately there is an "unfrozen" conflict in the former Soviet Union space now – in the east of Ukraine. Whether a settlement of the conflict with the participation of all the interested parties will be reached in the near future will largely determine the situation in the other conflict zones of the former USSR. In connection with the situation in Ukraine, there is much talk about the probability of a new destabilization inTransnistria. With regard toNagornoKarabakh, not being an expert on the region, I find it difficult to judge about the details, but at the moment, looking at it from outside, I do not see any major external forces that would be interested in "unfreezing" the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia is embroiled in a confrontation with the West; Turkey, as it turned out, has enough ofdomestic problems; in addition to those, a far more dangerous hotbed of tensions associated with the existence of so-called "Islamic State" in Syria and Iraq has formed up at its borders. In these circumstances, I do not think anyone would consider it beneficial, relatively speaking, to begin to reopen old wounds again.

Gagik Baghdasaryan (Armenia)
"Novosti Armenia" News Agency

Answer:
Well, I still have not seen "ferocity" in the Western media, comparable to the famous statementby Mr. Kiselyov about the "radioactive ash", which the Russian nuclear missiles are able to turn the US cities into. However, confrontation in the information sphere is really there, but it is a derivative of the political opposition. Once the prospects of a political agreement are outlined, the passions in the media will noticeably drop, too. However, here either I would not equate the media in Russia and the Western countries for the simple reason that the degree of government influence on information policy in Russia is much higher, though, there are still media outlets critical of the authorities. Butfirstitispoliticianswhoneedtoagree.

"Hetq" online newspaper (Armenia)

Question
What can in fact the deployment of US weapons in the Baltic countries do, as the inhabitants of these countries perceive this additional armament as an additional shield from Russia, or, on the contrary, as aprovocation? How serious are the fears in the West that Russia can go to an armed demarche against the EU?

Answer:
There is no single answer. Judging by the polls, the majority of the residents in the Baltic States welcomed the strengthening of NATO's military presence in its territory. But, the situation is the opposite, say, among the Russian-speaking minority in these countries. Since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine the alarmist moodstowards Russia have significantly increasedin Europe, and the Baltic countries are considered to be one of the possible objects of probable aggression from the east. At the same time there is a point of view that seems more realistic to me: that is, Moscow will not go for confrontation with those countries that are already members of NATO and are protected by Article 5 of the Charter of this organization (the Collective Security), but it willby all means try to prevent the rapprochement of its neighbors, not yet NATO members,with the organization – i.e. Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and so on.

Gagik Baghdasaryan (Armenia)
"Novosti Armenia" News Agency

Answer:
For a start I would like to hear who in Europe has been banned from "self-determination"in the recent decades. Let me remind you, that last year was a referendum on Scottish independence - almost a model example of how to tackle this kind of an issue. And in general it is probably possible to "self-determine"forever, because people are different, and there will always be some sign by which one group will differ from others. If this matter is brought to the point of absurdity, one may get down to the ‘self-determination’ of streets or individual houses. Of course, I exaggerate slightly, but only slightly.