Friendship is friendship, service is service. What do friendly relations have to do with work issues? If relations are friendly, does this mean that we should go beyond the norms stipulated by phytosanitary standards? Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who is on vacation and heads the ruling party’s electoral list for the parliamentary elections on June 7, stated this at a press conference Friday, in response to Armenian News-NEWS.am's question that if he is friends with Russian President Vladimir Putin, how did it happen that problems arose with Armenia’s exports to Russia and Armenia's status in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is being discussed.

According to him, only Armenia can discuss the issue of its status in the EAEU; that is, only Armenia can decide whether or not to leave this union. "There is no other procedure. At the same time, we are ready to answer other questions as well,” Pashinyan noted.

He assured that Russian natural gas prices cannot increase in Armenia, as there is a mutually beneficial agreement. “We had reached clear strategic agreements on [Russian natural] gas prices earlier, and they must be maintained.”

“There have always been restrictions on the export of flowers, because for any product that does not meet phytosanitary standards, restrictions have always been and always will be. There have been dozens of such cases over the past 8 years. There have also been other issues that concerned other products. And in the EAEU, we constantly discuss the issue of the origin of imported and exported products. The logic is that products being produced in the EAEU should move freely between the EAEU countries. This issue is constantly discussed in relation to all countries of the Union,” Pashinyan noted.

Also, he pointed to the importance of clarifying the issue of how much of the flowers being imported to Russia is produced in the EAEU countries.

"There is a delegation in Armenia now. And dozens of delegations are visiting various EAEU countries," the Armenian PM concluded.

Source: https://news.am/en/news/1037402