make preferableI have never heard that membership in the European Union is determined by self-declaration. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), stated this during Wednesday’s press briefing—and at the request of a reporter, commenting on the statement by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan about declaring the Caucasus a region of the European Union.
"The second point is that it is the sovereign task of each country to determine its national course, if it is democratic, in accordance with the aspirations and interests of the people. Therefore, naturally, each country is free to choose what it considers necessary, as, by the way, we have stated many times.
I listed a whole series of security agreements that include mutual obligations. We have the same complex in the domain of commercial, economic, and humanitarian ties. It seems to me everyone knows about this, remembers it, and that question is not addressed to us, how it is connected at all," she said.
"We are committed to all these obligations about us. For us this is not an empty phrase, for us these are the interests of the people of our countries—specific business operators, specific people, specific families. Therefore, there are different political wordings, but there is a specific people's life.
Nevertheless, in my opinion, the task of every statesman and the entire mass of state institutions is not to forget that the people are the priority, that everything should be done for the good, and the goals and tasks set by the people should be realized, as it is about democracy. Let everything else be decided within each sovereign country and harmonized, taking into account the realities, needs and desires, etc.," emphasized the official representative of the Russian MFA.
