YEREVAN. - Armenia’s participation in the EAEU stems from the country’s interests, representative of Armenian Revival Party, Mher Shahgeldyan, said on Monday at the debate between the parties and alliances participating in the country’s parliamentary elections.

As an argument he pointed to the lack of the country’s own resources and existence of a large Diaspora in Russia.

“It’s another thing that the relations with the EAEU and EU should be balanced. It is necessary to cooperate with the EU in issues of democracy, human rights and reforms. The framework agreement gives such an opportunity,” he said, urging not to forget about the market of arms. In the context of relations with the EAEU partners, Shahgeldyan noted that condemning the decision of Belarus regarding blogger Alexander Lapshin’s case, the party considers this as a problem in the relations with Belarus.

“Azerbaijan bribes, but there is also a problem with Armenia’s active policy.  We didn’t understand whether our embassy worked on Lapshin’s case or not,” Shahgeldyan said.

At the same time, he stressed that the EAEU capacities are not used in full.

ARF-D representative Giro Manoyan, for his part, noted that Armenia should follow the European approaches in its internal development, which doesn’t hinder the cooperation with other institutions. In the context of Armenia’s joining the EAEU, which resulted in withdrawing from signing of an agreement with EU and launch of talks on the new framework agreement, Manoyan recalled the delivery of Iskanders. “In the past we also sued to say that decisions are taken in a wrong way. But we say that this is done for security purposes,” he noted.

To the critical remark of Free Democrats Party representative Stepan Safaryan, Manoyan inquired whether the opponent was present at the meeting between Putin and Sargsyan, once he knew in such a great detail how the Russian President threatened the Armenian leader.

Referring to the issue, representative of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian alliance, Gegham Nazaryan, noted: “When our leaders hold talks with the EU for three years and then become an EAEU member overnight, one should think who makes decisions and how. Such an important decision wasn’t discussed in the parliament either, whereas a referendum should have been held.” Nevertheless, it would be funny to make a step back, he noted, adding that “it was stated that this stems from our security. This also turned out not be so.”

Representative of Yelk (Way Out) alliance, Mane Tandilyan, also opposed Armenia’s membership to the EAEU. “We lost investments and didn’t get new ones. Armenia has no deserving place in the EAEU. The alliance considers the country’s participation in the EAEU as a mistake. But we apparently have obligations. It is necessary to review and correct them,” she said.