France will pay more importance to Armenia, Artsakh also during its current presidency at EU Council – expert

 09:50, 7 January, 2022

YEREVAN, JANUARY 7, ARMENPRESS. Taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union, France will automatically give more importance to the issues relating to Armenia and Artsakh, not only as a friendly country of Armenia or as an OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair, but also as an EU Council chair now, Expert at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, French-Armenian political scientist Gaidz Minasyan told ARMENPRESS, stating that the Armenian diplomacy must be very active in coming six months in order to achieve a result.

“France has long attached importance to the issue of Armenia and Artsakh because it is both a friendly state for Armenia and is one of the Co-Chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group. Therefore, France should automatically give more importance to Armenia and Artsakh, now also at the level of the EU presidency”, he said.

According to him, both the French presidency at the EU and the French presidential elections to be held in April 2022 are an exclusive occasion for Armenians and Armenia to try to move forward with Emmanuel Macron, who is well aware of Armenian issues, for achieving peace, stability, development in the region, for the return of Armenian captives from Azerbaijan and on other matters.

Mr Minasyan said that the recent visit of French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse to Artsakh has further increased the importance of the issue of Nagorno Karabakh in the context of the French presidential campaign, but noted that it’s still difficult to predict what will be the position of Macron and other candidates on that issue.

France assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union on January 1, 2022 for a six-month term.

Reporting by Aram Sargsyan