Russia's Impact on EU Policy Transfer to the Post-Soviet Space: The Contested Neighborhood by Esther Ademmer

Author:Esther Ademmer [Ademmer, Esther]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781317371854
Google: -k70DAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-09-01T13:37:22+00:00

Negative incentives by Russia and the usage of the national action plan

Furthermore, the work on the national action plan coincided with the global financial crisis and the start of the ‘Compatriots Program’ of Russia’s FMS in Armenia. The program invited Armenian-based Russian compatriots – a term that followed a political rather than an ethnic or civic notion – to settle permanently in remote Russian areas (Byford 2012: 3). In order to fight Russia’s demographic decline, the program offered housing and work opportunities and facilitated naturalization to gain Russian citizenship. In Armenia, the initiative sparked fierce protests among non-parliamentary opposition groups and the ARF-Dashnaks alike, claiming that it undermined the Armenian-Russian relationship and Armenia’s economic development by encouraging brain drain (Grigoryan 2011b). Likewise, the government was increasingly confronted with criticism by the Armenian diaspora and its connected parties on emigration matters (Armenian News 2011a; Garbis 2012). Members of the Armenian National Congress, led by Ter-Petrosyan, frequently referred to the rising degree of emigration as a threat to national security and development (Armenian National Congress 2010; Armenian News 2010), which culminated in the 2012 pre-election slogan, ‘Whoever supports Serzh, supports emigration’ (A1+ 2012). A ‘migration meeting’ at the president’s office in July 2011 underlined the domestic urgency of the issue (Dilanyan 2011). When figures on emigration apparently peaked in 2011 and the opposition blamed the state for not tackling the problem of emigration, the EU-recommended national action plan on migration was presented as a ‘migration control strategy’ to counter the opposition’s criticism (Armenian News 2011a; see also PanArmenian.net 2011b, 2011c).

Yet, despite the fact that the action plan was sold as a means to reduce emigration, evidence suggests that the Armenian authorities had still not endorsed the Dashnak approach of stopping emigration by all means. The EU’s ‘Global Approach to Migration’, which was reflected in the action plan, rather foresaw limited, temporary and legal migration, while decreasing illegal migration flows (European Commission 2007f). As critical Armenian observers note, this was indeed very much in line with what the government hoped to achieve, bearing in mind the socio-economic effects of decreasing remittance payments and work opportunities abroad, let alone the human rights violation that a full stop of emigration from Armenia implied. Government critics accused the authorities of using Russia’s Compatriots Program as a ‘way to let off steam from […] spreading discontent’ (Grigoryan 2011b) in Armenia, a debate that was lighted by statements by Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan. He reportedly replied to a journalist’s question concerning the increased volume of emigrants from Armenia as follows:

What can we do, we should do everything so these people won’t flee, so that critical mass remains here and a revolution happens? What can we do for people to stay in Armenia? We have to do it so that life in our country is better than [life] abroad.

(Sargsyan, quoted in Epress.am 2011)

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