Tigran Sargsyan to take over Khristenko in Eurasian Economic Union

ArmInfo. During the Summit of the Eurasian Economic Union on the level of presidents, being held in Kazakhstan, the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan decided, who will take over Russian Victor Khristenko as the Chairman of the Eurasian Economic Commission, executive body of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Armenia's representative Tigran Sargsyan will become Khristenko's successor, informed Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko, who was heading the Summit.  

According to RBK, Khristenko will serve his full term of office in February. Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov during a briefing for journalists in the beginning of the week told that the presidents will discuss the procedure of appointment of the new Chairman of the Collegium, but they may not make the final decision. If the issue is not agreed, all the conditions will be created to make a decision upon the next Chairman, Ushakov said. On Friday the issue was not solved yet, an interlocutor, closely familiar with the discussion process, told RBK. Various variants were worked out, the sides had also to decide from which country to start the rotation of the Collegium Chairman, from the one who joint only in January of 2015 or from Belarus, which was at the origins of the Union.

Tigran Sargsyan was the Armenia's prime minister till April 2014. He was adherent of European integration and made a lot of statements in this regard including in Russian publications (in 2012 in an article for the Russian Vedomosti he was presenting the advantages of European integration). Although in September of 2013 President Serzh Sargsyan made a decision towards Eurasian integration. Currently Tigran Sagsyan is Armenia's Ambassador to the USA.

As Khristenko told, Sargsyan has allocated a lot of time to Eurasian integration and was a driving force of joining. The process of joining of Armenia to EEU commenced in September of 2013 and ended by joining to the Union on January 2 of 2015. Khristenko on briefing told about another personnel decision, particularly the presidents decided to reduce the number of representative's from the countries in the Collegium from three to two. The Collegium will consist of 10 Ministers, Khristenko told. The Presidents also approved an agreement, which covers the regulation of relations within the Union related to the Kazakhstan's entrance to WTO.