ARMENIA AFTER THE VILNIUS SUMMIT: IT IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE STRUGGLE FOR “HEARTS AND MINDS”

21.03.2014

ARMENIA AFTER THE VILNIUS SUMMIT: IT IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE STRUGGLE FOR “HEARTS AND MINDS”

Sergei Sargsyan
Deputy Head, Centre for the Political Studies, Noravank Foundation

As the February events in the Republic of Moldova (Gagauzia referendum) and Ukraine (ouster of Yanukovych) showed, signing or refusing to sign an EU Association Agreement by itself does not completely take off the table the issue of the direction for foreign political and economic integration for the EU Eastern Partnership countries.

In Gagauzia the initialing of the Agreement was viewed as a threat to the autonomy. Fearing that the Constitutional Court of Moldova may at any time abolish the Article 4 of the Law on Gagauz Autonomy that “in case of a change in the Republic of Moldova status as an independent state the people of Gagauzia reserve the right for external self-determination” and that in such case it would take at least two months to organize a referendum on the issue, a preventive referendum was conducted in February 2014. Participation was record high (over 70.4% of the registered voters) and the results showed that 98.4% are for integration with the Customs Union with 1.5% against it. At the same time 2.5% voted for joining the EU and 97.4% were against. The idea of “the deferred status of the autonomy”, whereby Gagauzia reserves its right to self-determination in case Moldova loses its independence, was supported by 98.8% of the voters.

This is not only about Gagauzia. The Bulgarians of Taraclia region in south of Moldova, other towns and cities in Moldova, such as Bessarabka, Cahul and the industrial center and “northern capital” of the country Bălți are also likely to join to the Gagauz initiative. However, since the Constitution stipulates no local referendums, most likely they will conduct those under the pretense of “opinion polls.” These will bear no legal effects, but will uncover the population’s mindset towards the prospect of Chisinau signing an Association Agreement with the EU. The results will certainly be used in the parliament election campaigns that, in fact, have already started.

In Ukraine a sudden, unprepared and weakly reasoned refusal of the cabinet to follow the very course it supported for several years toward closer relations with the EU, including establishment of a free trade zone, sparked an outburst of protests, which culminated in Maidan-2013. It further evolved into Maidan-2014 with fewer, but more radically inclined supporters, which resulted in an armed standoff and over 80 casualties, seizure of the executive power in the country, ouster of president Yanukovych and revival of the urgency to sign the EU Association Agreement.

After the Vilnius summit doubts were cast on further continuation of the Eastern Partnership Program in its existing format. After all, despite an apparent success with Moldova and Georgia, the Program failed not only in Azerbaijan and Belarus (signs for which were visible even before), but also in Armenia and most surprisingly, in Ukraine.

In early February 2014 thirteen EU countries prepared a document dubbed “European package” that is supposed to lay foundations for further cooperation with the Eastern Partnership countries under the “post-Vilnius” realities. This document widens the areas of the Program activities, including accelerating conclusion of Association Agreements with Georgia and Moldova, more frequent visits of Program officials to participating countries, more active dialogue with Russia and strengthening Europe’s role in resolution of the long-lasting conflicts. In essence, this is about reinforcing the information support of the Program and increasing informational pressure on its participating countries. This will be carried out through the structures established within the framework of the renewed European Neighborhood, through the Eastern Partnership Program, EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly, European Foundation for Democracy, EC Civil Society Fund with its platforms in the countries, as well as most likely through some new structures.

Generally, within the framework of the Eastern Partnership program and under tutelage of the EU, in participating countries there is an already established and actively operating network of government organizations, which:

- receives intense political, organizational and technical support from European institutions;

- is fully or considerably out of the government control in a given country, and in the long term is financially independent;

- monitors (in fact controls) implementation of the bilateral and multilateral agreements and commitments of the governments in relation to the EU; and

- is managed and coordinated by centers in Europe.

Among other things, the “European Package” entails implementation of comparative studies to assess Eastern Partnership countries’ prospects in case of signing an EU Association Agreement or, conversely, joining the Customs Union. Hence, with this the EU intensifies competition with Russia to attract new countries to alternative integration projects and pushes this competition into the information space, where Europe has a lot more experience than Russia does and hence, Brussels plans to outperform Moscow there.

The West has been systematically and constantly operating in the information space of the region since long ago. On the contrary, Russia started doing the same only recently, time to time and through one-time events, which at best result in a short-term surge of sympathy among a limited number of participants.

Admittedly though, Moscow managed to win Brussels in the first round of the information struggle (not information warfare yet). However, this was not really because Moscow played well, but because Europe played poorly, when it abandoned its declared principles of openness and transparency by keeping the texts of Association Agreements under lock and key, away from the public eyes in the signatory states.

As a whole, all of this means that struggle “for the hearts and minds” of the people in Eastern Partnership countries has only begun.

As far as the “hearts” are concerned, since this is about the emotional condition of the societies, the struggle outcome will depend on quantitative parameters of the information flow, perseverance and bias of the representatives and charismatic speakers of the media, as well as in what proportion they will be divided along the East-West axis (for South Caucasus it is the North-West axis).

As for the struggle for “minds”, it is a lot more serious, because here one has to do with the facts, and as it is well known, facts are non-ductile. As an example, there is a widespread and continuously planted idea that Armenia abandoned its intentions to prepare and sign the EU Association Agreement only under the Russian pressure and out of a sheer concern for its own military security, despite the government has shown clear interest in such agreement since 2010.

However, a thorough analysis of the outlooks for the proposed alternative integration projects along with their pre-stated depth of integration brings to a conclusion that Yerevan’s decision in favor of the Customs Union was based on economic arguments at least to the same extent as military and political ones. In particular, many experts and analysts in and outside Armenia have brought to attention examples of differing approaches of CU and EU to the largest and most promising projects that are directly related not only to economic development, but also national security. For instance, Brussels has stated on numerous occasions about the necessity to shut down the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant, whereas Russia has offered to prolong its operation under international support to increase its safe functioning and also supported Yerevan’s plans of constructing a new nuclear power plant with modern technologies to replace the old one.

Given the differences in Brussels’ and Moscow’s approaches to Georgia-Abkhazia and Georgia-South Ossetia conflict and development prospects for trans-regional communications in South Caucasus, Russia is the only global actor truly interested for objective reasons in opening the railroad traffic through Abkhazia, Georgia and Armenia.

Turkey and Azerbaijan are implementing a project to construct Kars-Akhalkalaki-Tbilisi-Baku (KATB) railway, which has significant geopolitical and anti-Armenian component in it. At the same time, for Iran a railway corridor through Armenia would not be the only one connecting it to Georgia and Russia among the existing and projected North-South communications lines.

Washington’s efforts to suspend the KATB project that excludes Armenia from yet another regional communications project somewhat slowed down the construction, but failed to stop it, thus allowing Turkey to continue the blockade of the existing alternative Gyumri-Kars railroad.

Thus, because of Armenia’s prospects for regional integration without compromising national security interests of the Republic of Armenia and Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in terms of unilateral concessions to Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and to Turkey in terms of the Genocide recognition, it is beneficial for Yerevan to join projects where Russia is interested and which it lobbies. This concerns both ensuring reliable supply to the Russian military base 102 in Armenia and full-capacity operation of Russian- and jointly-owned export-oriented industrial facilities in Armenia, whether currently idle, operating or to be built. Among those the largest ones are worth mentioning, such as Mars, Armenal and Nairit factories, for which reconstruction and increased scope of production with Russian participation are now actively discussed.

In addition, not everything is simple with the Russian gas imports, which have a key role in energy security of Armenia.

Signing an EU Association Agreement and being in a free trade zone together with Georgia would first of all mean shutting down the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in a maximally short period of time. Secondly, it would mean liberalization and considerable unification/regionalization of energy policies of Tbilisi and Yerevan, which implies merging the energy markets of the two countries in accordance with the EU energy policy “Third Package” rules, with equal access and free competition for all participants of the agreement. This would result in decreased Russian interest in Armenia and hike of Russian gas prices to market levels already in the mid-term, in turn leading to low demand for electricity generated by Armenian, Armenian-Russian and Russian power plants (first of all the Unit 5 of the Hrazdan Thermal Power Plant) caused by less expensive or at least very competitively priced electricity from the Georgian hydro power plants, both existing and under construction.

In economic terms this could be only welcomed. However, once Georgia virtually becomes a monopolist in the energy market of Armenia, the latter would be vulnerable both economically and politically, since electricity prices may then increase due to absence of common interests unlike in the case with Armenian-Russian relations, whereas Georgia’s strategic partnership with Turkey and Azerbaijan continues to strengthen.

Under such circumstances any disputes would have to be resolved in Brussels, which due to own energy interests will consider the stances of not only Tbilisi and Yerevan, but also that of Baku. Moreover, in such situation interests of Tbilisi and Baku would match. This would become especially relevant once the Georgian section of the North-South gas pipeline, which has strategic importance for Armenia, is put up for privatization. On numerous occasions Azerbaijan has assertively expressed interest in purchasing it. It is pertinent to recall the early 1990s, when there was a practice of blowing up this pipeline, which passes through Marneuli region of Georgia predominantly populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis. With the Armenian NPP shut down and no gas storages, this had a strong psychological effect on the population of Armenia, when the country was in an open armed conflict with Azerbaijan. One of the consequences of the energy blockade was mass emigration, the effects of which are still felt in Armenia.

Also, signing the EU Association Agreement would directly affect the Armenian-Iranian relations, development of which is currently viewed “with understanding” in Washington and Brussels. However, further associated relations with the EU would require Armenia join the EU and US economic sanctions against Iran. As the current outlook for lifting the sanctions is still bleak, this would negatively affect Armenia’s situation.

***

It appears the current geopolitical situation in South Caucasus creates conditions in which an informed, objective and established viewpoint of Armenia’s people toward the country’s participation in integration projects will be formed not so much by informational coverage of the Armenia-EU and Armenia-CU bilateral relations, but rather by the analysis of the military, political and economic actions that actors playing in the region will conduct. A substantiated, balanced position of the experts and analysts would enable the society to choose in the wide range of suggested opinions the ones in best interests of Armenia and mutually beneficial for its allies.

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