Annual Eurasian Hearings Suggested to Be Held in Yerevan

• 03.22.2015, 16:00
•  EEU,  World,  Armenia

Eurasian Expert Club offers to annually hold a forum titled "Eurasian Yerevan Hearings" in Armenia. The purpose of the forum is to discuss important issues with the participation of specialists of Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) countries and come up with innovative suggestions.

This was declared by the members of the Expert Club Aram Safaryan, head of the NGO "Integration and Development"; Gagik Harutyunyan, head of Research and Educational Foundation "Noravank" and economist Tatul Manaseryan in a press conference held on March 21 in Yerevan.

"Today everyone in the EEU understands, that without humanitarian cooperation, development of relations between societies, horizontal networks, economic integration based only on business cannot have big perspectives," – Aram Safaryan said. He mentioned that based on its intellectual resources Armenia can claim the role of a platform, where the whole society of the Eurasian area with the involvement of government officials and politicians can discuss its concerns, ideas and develop new suggestions.

The above mentioned people suggested holding "Eurasian Yerevan Hearings" forum every year at the end of September or at the beginning of October, in which academicians, scientists, journalists and businessmen with creative thinking will participate to discuss issues concerning the perspectives of the Eurasian integration. 

Gagik Harutyunyan mentioned that in the context of the existing geopolitical processes very little is being said about the importance of human capital. He stressed the urgency of such an initiative, the importance of a systematic presentation of the existing problems. "It should not be just an event, but should be a start of a work. It can also be an electronic platform, which will contribute to the increase of cooperation efficiency, as well as the well-being of the EEU member countries," – Harutyunyan mentioned.

Economist Tatul Manaseryan mentioned that it is profoundly important to recognize and realize your own resources as in this regard Armenia has a unique potential. "Now it is the stage of developing rules of the game in the EEU, which is to be followed or should go in parallel with the stage  of developing the agenda.  We should not wait until being offered an agenda, Armenia should be an initiator in this case,"- Manaseryan said. He particularly highlighted the fact, that in this process it would be possible to use not only the intellectual potential of Armenia,  but also of the Armenians all over the world.

   They also discussed issues of creating a single EEU currency and the prospects of the Union. According to the experts, the creation of the single currency must be preceded by a number of processes and stages which will take quite a long period of time. "The creation of a single currency is not a question of the nearest future," - the economist announced. 

 Referring to the question of the compatibility of European integration and the EEU membership, Aram Safaryan mentioned that "we should be able to combine these two vectors, otherwise we will suffer from serious attacks." In his turn, Tatul Manaseryan added, that "it seems Brussels and Moscow understand the position of Armenia.  Our relations are dynamically evolving with the EU and we must diversify our foreign economic affairs and not create dependency."

During the press conference it was stressed that Armenia, giving way to other 3 EEU countries in terms of the size of its economic, at the same time has serious potential, human capital and can contribute to the development of the EEU, to the formation of an agenda and strengthen its position.