Armenian leadership must realize that cheese in the “European mousetrap” will not be free. Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on International Affairs, stated this, commenting on the European Union’s (EU) plans to eliminate tariffs on 80 percent of Armenian exports to the EU.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday announced in Yerevan that the EU plans to eliminate tariffs on 80 percent of Armenian exports to the EU countries. In her opinion, this mechanism will open the doors to Europe for almost 99 percent of Armenia’s agricultural products, vegetables, fruits and organic products, as well as 90 percent of its exports of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

“Now is the moment of truth, when the leadership of Armenia must truly realize that cheese in the European mousetrap will not be free,” Slutsky wrote on Telegram.

According to the Russian MP, these trade privileges are the price for introducing the Ukrainian experiment of creating an anti-Russian stronghold in Armenia in the future. He added that the negative consequences of such a move will be felt first of all by the people of Armenia.

“And it will not work to ‘sit on two chairs.’ This has also been said many times. Either Yerevan’s membership in the EAEU, while maintaining ties and cooperation with Russia and other members of the union, or European integration, which means the actual renunciation of sovereignty and the establishment of a Brussels protectorate... And this is no longer an ‘introduction of experience,’ but a repetition of fatal mistakes by handing over the state to foreign rule,” Slutsky concluded.