‘From regional swamp towards Europe’, pundit weighs in on visa liberalization talks

YEREVAN, AUGUST 20, ARMENPRESS. Political analyst Davit Stepanyan has hailed the EU’s decision on starting a visa liberalization dialogue with Armenia. He said the move is definitively a positive step for Armenia in all areas.

“As a result, we will have a facilitated visa regime with EU countries,” Stepanyan told Armenpress. “I view this step first of all from a political perspective. We will do one more step allowing us to be closer to Europe. Given the fact that our region is full of threats and challenges, up to the threat of losing Armenia’s sovereignty, in case of the abovementioned decision a step is made from the regional swamp towards Europe, which will allow us to have broader bridges. Our citizens in turn will have much more opportunities to travel to EU countries and study there,” Stepanyan said, adding that this will in turn increase the country’s educational level, which is highly important. The decision will also have positive impact economically, according to the analyst. Business ties will be facilitated: traveling to Europe for exchange of experience will become much easier for small business owners.

“The risks related to illegal migration and failure of reforms are definitively taken into consideration in this process. The number one country that is treating the visa liberalization issue strictly is our friendly France, given the painful issue concerning illegal migration. Everyone understands that many illegal migrants could potentially travel to France from Armenia to live there. But fortunately, we have readmission agreements with various EU countries, and after the visa liberalization it will be much more difficult for illegal migrants to stay there than now, because there will definitely be stricter policies. We can see that with the example of Georgia. Many citizens of that country violated migration laws after visa liberalization, but afterwards we saw how many people returned to Georgia. And today many of them are deprived of the opportunity to travel to Europe,” the analyst said.

In terms of the risks related to the failure of reforms in Armenia, Stepanyan said it’s up to the authorities to make the next move. He said the government should continue the reform process by making legislative changes.

“The people also want this. If the authorities give it the shape which the EU expects, I think the risks will be eliminated. Nevertheless, the risks exist at this moment,” Stepanyan said.

The issue of political asylum seekers in the EU is no longer actual because Armenia is a democratic country and people don’t have the need to seek asylum in any other country, he added.

“Such grounds existed in the past, because many were subjected to political persecution. Some were applying and receiving asylum. But now the situation is different, there are no political persecutions in our country. This is a fact. You can criticize or not like the current government, but the fact that there are no such occurrences in Armenia since 2018 is definitely obvious and welcomed by the EU,” Stepanyan said.

Asked whether or not some restrictions would possibly be enforced after liberalization, Stepanyan said that this would depend on the conduct of the Armenian nationals.

“If people properly maintain the liberalization regime there won’t be problems, but if they behave like Georgians then there will be restrictions, which, by the way, are still in place for Georgia. I am aware of cases when some people who arrived to our country from Georgia were banned from boarding a plane to Vienna despite it simply being a transit destination. Thus, everything depends on us,” the political analyst said.