During his working visit to Kazakhstan, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan today attended a regular session of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council (EIC) in Almaty.  

Pashinyan, after a joint photo session attended by the heads of government, the EIC meeting kicked off, first in a restricted and then in an expanded format. Pashinyan delivered the following speech, disseminated by his office, at the expanded-format session.

I would like to start my speech with a vote of thanks to Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Mamin for the invitation and for hosting today’s important event. I take this opportunity to again congratulate Askar Uzakpayevich on being re-appointed to the post of Prime Minister. I am confident that your activities will help further strengthen relationships between our countries, as well as develop and implement the mutually agreed decisions in a multilateral format, including the development of the EAEU potential.

I would also like to congratulate Ulukbek Asamidinovich Maripov on his appointment as Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic and wish him every success in his activities.

I extend my heartfelt greetings to the representatives of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic of Moldova and the Republic of Cuba who are participating as observers. Your attendance comes to demonstrate once again the growing international importance of our organization. This is another good reason to reaffirm our readiness to cooperate with the observer states in the framework of joint programs and projects of mutual interest.

Among the key outcomes of the preceding period, I would highlight the final approval of the Union’s development strategy by 2025. We hope that this year will be fruitful in terms of further implementation of those integration vectors reflected in the document. In this regard, I would like to highlight the measures aimed at expanding cooperation in the sphere of high technologies and digital technologies, in particular.

Armenia has traditionally actively participated in and supported the process of creating and implementing the EAEU Digital Agenda. We welcome the holding of a digital forum on the sidelines of today’s meeting, in which I had the pleasure to participate. I am confident that the Forum will go a long way towards identifying the priority areas and developing effective tools for cooperation between our countries in the field of high and digital technologies.

In this context, I should state with satisfaction the successful launch of a pilot mobile application project, referred to as Traveling without COVID-19. Launched on February 1, 2021, the project allowed us to find mutually acceptable solutions to resuming passenger traffic between Armenia, Belarus and Russia, which is of paramount social and economic significance to our country. Obviously, this project is also important in terms of reducing the risk of coronavirus infection and occupies an important place among the measures taken to combat the pandemic.

Dear colleagues, coming to the agenda of today’s meeting, I would like to weigh in on the following topics. There is no doubt that the improvement of mechanisms for the application of special protective, anti-dumping and countervailing measures in the EAEU can be effectively used to protect domestic producers from the negative impact of increased imports or unfair competition from third countries. Here, both a unified approach and the final result are important as reflected in the competitiveness of the goods of the Union states in relation to the goods of third countries.

The Armenian side is prepared to work closely with its integration partners to develop a common approach to the application of such measures. In the context of mechanisms aimed at protecting the Union’s internal market, we should also consider the possibility of developing and implementing a retaliatory mechanism on the territory of the EAEU in accordance with existing international treaties.

We attach great importance to the assessments and generalizations provided in the report “On Macroeconomic Situation in EAEU-Member States and Proposals for Ensuring Sustainable Economic Development.” I am confident that they are useful for analyzing the financial and economic situation in our countries and forecasting the development scenarios.

Finally, I would like to thank you for the constructive approach shown by the EAEU countries to Armenia’s initiative to revise the list of countries-users of the unified system of tariff preferences. I am pleased to note that the issue of granting tariff preferences for goods and services from developing and least developed countries has already been included in the agenda of our organization and will soon be given an appropriate decision based on the criteria we have adopted.

In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm Armenia’s readiness to endeavor towards implementing the EAEU priority areas as identified by the Kazakh Chairmanship to further promote Eurasian integration and develop our union. Thank you.