“I think it is important that the European Parliament adopted this resolution on the pressure exerted by Russia on Eastern Partnership countries. With the help of this resolution the parliamentarians underline their support for the Eastern Partnership countries. These countries have chosen a European perspective, joining the Eastern Partnership and working on Association Agreements for the last years,” Ms. Cramon admits.
She underlined that these pending agreements are not directed towards Russia: “There will be positive trade effects for Russia as well. The EU aims at a zone of prosperity and stability in our continent.”
“The main differences between the two options – DCFTA with the EU or membership in the Custom Union – by the way when the EU launched the Eastern Partnership in 2009, nobody talked about a Eurasian Union – is that the former contains value-based benchmarks and therefore it gives incentives for domestic reforms,” Ms. Cramon comments.
She hopes that the resolution will prompt Eastern Partnership countries to better cooperation with EU, but “the Armenian example shows you can never be sure”. However, “Armenia is in a different situation especially concerning its security,” Ms. Cramon argues. Regarding Ukraine, “it seems that the artificial trade obstacles Russia introduced in August had a different effect on the Ukrainian government. They are not willing to leave the European path,” she says.
