“Today's meeting is timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the signing of the [founding] treaty on the EEU in Astana on May 29, 2014,” he said. “Over the 10 years of its existence, the Eurasian Economic Union has become a platform of close economic interaction between member states significant for the economies of our countries.”
“The Armenian side consistently advocates compliance with the fundamental principles underlying the EEU Treaty and expresses its readiness for active interaction with all member states in the interests of further development of the chosen paradigm of economic cooperation,” added Pashinian, whose country assumed the bloc’s rotating presidency in January.
Russian President Vladimir Putin likewise insisted that all of the EEU countries have benefited from their membership in the bloc.
“Economic indicators speak for themselves,” he said. “Over the last ten years, the combined GDP of the Eurasian Union states has increased, according to available estimates, from $1.6 trillion to $2.5 trillion.”
Pashinian attended the summit amid Armenia’s unprecedented tensions with Russia that have led him to freeze its membership in another Russian-led bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). He was due to discuss the tensions with Putin at a separate meeting later on Wednesday.
Yerevan has so far been careful not to distance itself from the EEU, mindful of the Armenian economy’s heavy dependence on Russia’s vast market and relatively cheap natural gas.
Russia accounted for over 35 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade and more than 40 percent of its exports last year. Russian-Armenian trade has skyrocketed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with Armenian entrepreneurs taking advantage of Western sanctions against Moscow to re-export Western-manufactured goods to Russia.