ArmInfo. The budget of the Resilient Syunik Team Europe Initiative has doubled. EU Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Armenia Andrea Wiktorin stated this during a press conference in Kapan dedicated to Europe Day.
In particular, according to the diplomat, in January of this year, when the launch of this program was announced in Yerevan, it was about a budget of 51 million euros for the next 5 years. However, with the increase in the number of partner countries, according to Wiktorin, now the budget is already 116 million euros, of which 40 million euros are grant funds and 76 million euros are loans.
In this context, the Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia expressed her hope that other EU member states will join the program in the future, which, accordingly, will contribute to an increase in the budget. Within the framework of the program, the focus of the Europe Team will be focused on the development of the private sector, the opportunities and skills of the SME sector, investments in infrastructure in the fields of education and health, as well as social assistance, improving the quality of local government, etc. Today, the Europe Team includes 10 EU countries, including in particular France, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, and Switzerland as an external partner.