YEREVAN. – The Government of Armenia will establish seven working groups to accelerate the activities toward joining the Customs Union.  

Deputy Economy Minister Karine Minasyan told the aforesaid to news reporters on Thursday, and added that each group will deal with a specific matter.  

Minasyan noted that there are solely 32 technical regulations in the Customs Union, whereas they are lot more in Armenia.  

“It was expedient to create seven groups so that every domain is studied in detail. These groups will be interdepartmental and they do not assume additional expenditures, except for the translation work which we have commissioned to the Ministry of Justice,” the deputy minister added. 

To the query as to whether in the future Armenia would find it inexpedient to join the Customs Union, Minasyan responded by saying that the decision to join the union is already made.    

As for Armenia’s cooperation with the European Union, Karine Minasyan specifically said:

“I believe cooperation with the EU will continue. We just need to make sure that our cooperation in the two directions would not conflict with one another. I am sure that joining the Customs Union is much more correct today.”         

To note, following the talks that were held on September 3 in Moscow between Armenian and Russian Presidents Serzh Sargsyan and Vladimir Putin, Sargsyan had announced that Armenia plans to join the Customs Union and subsequently engage in the formation of the Eurasian Economic Union.