Most Armenians against EEU: Survey

/By AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

Armenia decided to tie its future with the Eurasian Economic Union in 2013 and two years later in 2015 it officially joined the alliance. And now a new survey says most Armenians are against the decision.

The government's reluctance to inform the people in detail about the EEU integration, as well as lack of reliable studies has questioned the nationwide awareness in regard to the economic union.

Union of Informed Citizens, a local non-government organization, carried out a survey in an effort to explore the attitude of the population towards Armenia's EEU membership.

The study was also aimed at revealing people’s factual knowledge and expectations related to a possible change in prices for various products and services in the wake of joining the EEU. The study's another key aim was also comparing the respondents’ attitude towards EEU membership to their actual knowledge of EEU membership details.

The survey results suggested that more than half - 61.2 percent - of the respondents are aware of what Eurasian Economic Union is. The rest 28.8 percent said they have no information about the alliance.

The most interesting point of the study was the difference between the percentage of pro-EEU and anti-EEU respondents.

About 42 percent of the surveyed people ruled out Armenia's bondage with the trade bloc, whilst 37.6 percent said yes to the membership, and 20.4 percent emerged to have no idea.

Mostly female respondents, the survey exposed, appeared to be against membership at EEU. Furthermore, the respondents below the age of 40 were reluctant to hail the post-soviet country's EEU devotion.

More than half of the respondents didn’t expect any decrease in prices for gas and petrol in Armenia following its membership at the EEU, said the survey. Almost half of the respondents didn’t have such expectations in regard to the imported Russian products. On the contrary, the survey revealed that nearly half of the respondents have been bracing themselves for a rise in prices for food, equipment, clothes and furniture imported from other countries.

The analysis of the survey results shed light on a contradictory fact. Almost half of the respondents - 46.4 percent - who gave predominantly wrong answers to the survey questions favored Armenia’s membership at the EEU. But nearly half of the respondents - 46.4 percent - whose answers were primarily correct appeared to be against it.

Meanwhile, the survey suggested that the more informed people are about EEU membership and its consequences, the more they reported to be against it.

It proved that the poor awareness among the people, in fact, formed a non-reliable public opinion in Armenia, since favoring the EEU membership without having factual information is somehow deceptive.

There is a considerable portion of the population having no decisive opinion and clear expectations from the EEU and consequences of Armenia’s membership in it.

The study also revealed that majority of respondents didn’t even have an elementary knowledge on the details of this integration and its consequences.

Armenia's EEU path has been jagged since President Serzh Sargsyan harbingered about joining the alliance. Now, obvious lack of unanimous public opinion darkens the government's great hopes it pinned on the bloc.