On 25 February 2014, Artur Baghdasaryan, Secretary of the National Security Council and Ambassador Traian Hristea, Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, co-chaired the 15th Board Meeting of the EU Advisory Group in Armenia. The EU Advisory Group presented its Quarterly Report for October-December 2013, an updated Needs Assessment Report and a work plan for January- April 2014.
he Board expressed satisfaction with the Quarterly Report for October-December 2013, which emphasized the policy advice provided by the EU Advisory Group in the fields of the rule of law, migration, law enforcement, democratic governance and human rights.
The Report highlighted the efforts of the EU Advisory Group to support the Visa Dialogue process and introduction of the concept of corporate criminal liability into the RA criminal law. The Group provided advice and organised training courses for law enforcement agencies on human trafficking and financial investigation.
'Over these years we have been effectively working thanks to our partners from the EU and UN. We also have potential to continue our partnership. We have already submitted the draft of Armenia-EU further cooperation which involves 160 directions", Artur Bagdasaryan said and added that Armenia is interested in further functioning of the Advisory Group which will make it possible to find new directions of cooperation in the given format.
For his part, Traian Hristea said that Armenia-EU partnership enters a new stage though it cannot be more effective than it is now. He also added that the agreements on simplification of the visa regime and on readmission between Armenia and EU have stepped in since 1 January 2014. The new package of documents covers several sectors and supposes cooperation in the sphere of justice, fighting corruption, human rights and strengthening of civil society, the ambassador said.
He also added that the EU is not going to close its programmes in Armenia and will go on cooperating with this country.The EU will also continue financing of the programmes to be fulfilled, Traian Hristea said.
Vice-speaker of the Armenian parliament, Edward Sharmazanov, added that the EU still remains one of the most important partners of Armenia and the joint declaration adopted at the Vilnius summit in November 2013 is evidence of the fact that official Yerevan will go on making reforms on the way of democratization. "We hope that Armenia-EU partnership will continue and will be effective, as it is stemming from our interests", - Sharmazanov concluded.