EU to help Armenia with democratic reforms

EU to help Armenia with democratic reforms

Arminfo
15 Mar 04

YEREVAN

The sixth session of the Armenia-European Union commission for
interparliamentary cooperation started in Yerevan today.

The speaker of the Armenian National Assembly, Artur Bagdasaryan,
stated at the opening of the session that Armenia’s membership of the
European Union (EU) is one of the priorities of the republic’s foreign
policy. He said that the main step of the republic’s integration in
the EU is its participation in the “Expanded Europe: new neighbours”
programme.

Artur Bagdasaryan noted that Armenia has already completed the process
of honouring its commitments to the Council of Europe. He stressed
that constitutional changes and reforms in the legal system should
also be carried out in the republic.

The head of the Armenia-European Union commission for
interparliamentary cooperation, Torben Holtze, stated that the last
few years have seen progress in Armenia’s fulfilment of its
commitments to the CE. He said that the republic has ratified all
international conventions and adopted almost all the laws required by
the CE. At the same time, he stressed that it is necessary to reform
the state’s electoral system in order to rule out violations during
elections in the future, as it was the case in the 2003 presidential
and parliamentary elections.

[Passage omitted: The EU is to allocate 20m euros to Armenia for
democratic reforms and for the settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh
conflict]

Submitted by Janoyan Ana