Tuesday, November 26 2019 19:18

ArmInfo.Lawrence Meredith, the Director for Neighbourhood East, DG Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), European Commission, sees obvious benefits for Armenia in signing the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced  Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Thus, on November 26 in Yerevan at a press conference dedicated to  the two year anniversary of signing CEPA, Meredith said that this  agreement opens up new opportunities for citizens from the creation  of new jobs to legal regulations.

In this regard, he recalled that this year the EU has already  allocated EUR 23 million to Yerevan to implement the ambitious reform  agenda of the Armenian government. At the same time, he named three  important reasons why it is necessary to invest in Armenia. "Firstly,  in connection with ambitious reforms initiated by the Armenian  authorities in the fight against corruption and strengthening  justice. Secondly, these are Armenia's innovative opportunities,  which are inexhaustible. And lastly, these are young people, since  the future of Armenia is formed by people," the European official  said, adding that this year the EU doubled financial assistance to  the Armenian side, since it sees positive results in the  implementation of reforms.

In turn, Luc Devigne, Director for Russia, Eastern partnership,  Central Asia and OSCE; Deputy Managing Director for Europe and  Central Asia at the European External Action Service, welcomed the  commitments of the Armenian government to implement the reform agenda  and CEPA. At the same time, he added that he received positive  impressions of the level of preparation of the RA government on this  document, which would be of great benefit to the people.

He also noted that since 2013 (Armenia announced its intention to  join the Eurasian Economic Union - Ed.  note), a special approach was  applied to Armenia within the framework of the Eastern Partnership  program, which reflected the needs of Yerevan. "The Eastern  Partnership is an initiative building bridges, not destroying them. I  would like to remind you that since 2013 the EU has also developed a  special tariff scale for Armenia within the framework of the  Generalized System of Preferences (GSP + for RA), which was a  manifestation of goodwill and positive attitude of the EU countries  towards Yerevan, "Devigne said, while noting that the CEPA has fixed  all the key areas of cooperation for Armenia. According to him, this  is a fairly comprehensive document