EU ready to assist Armenia’s reforms and development: Pashinyan discussed several megaprojects in Brussels
The European Union is fully ready to support Armenia in its reforms agenda and implementation of development programs in general, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said at the beginning of the Cabinet meeting, introducing the results of his Brussels trip.
“As you know, our delegation has just returned from the talks held with the EU leaders. We can record that we are entering a new state for the implementation of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU. In this regard, it was noted that the EU is fully ready to assist our reforms agenda and the implementation of development programs in Armenia in general”, Pashinyan said.
The PM stated that there is no geopolitical agenda in these relations both by Armenia and the EU which is very important in this sense.
“There is a nuance here that we should make important decisions in the future. Yesterday, I touched this topic in the Parliament, the issue is the following: we have discussed several megaprojects with the EU the first group of which concerns road and transportation infrastructures. Our goal is to make the roads of Armenia in accordance with the European standards. We also must make a decision on the North-South transportation project”, the PM said.
He added that the next one relates to the water reservoir construction plan and the introduction of new water management system.
“The next issue concerns building schools, especially in terms of seismic resistance, which we carry out. But we need to seriously expand this project, first of all to make these schools in accordance with the seismic, educational, content and latest demands from both building and property terms.
We also need to carry out serious programs in the justice sector. Speaking with the EU partners I have stated that the prison conditions of today cannot be considered comfortable with the standards of new Armenia. We have court hearings that are being held in corridor conditions and thus undermine the content of justice.
For the implementation of all these programs we have received the EU’s readiness to assist, but there is one problem here that the EU is not ready to implement these programs by 100% and expects that Armenia will have a serious participation in this. Our task is to increase the state revenues via administration. In this context importance is also attached to the attraction of foreign funds, and we view the infrastructures as their main target”, the Prime Minister said, adding that a political decision must be made here on how the executive reacts this issue. “Because we also have certain legislative restrictions on the GDP-state debt ratio. Frankly speaking, I personally, when I was an MP, have voted against all loan programs, and it had a very concrete political explanation: I have stated that if I consider the government as corrupt, I cannot trust any fund to that government, especially a loan, and unfortunately, our observations during this period explain the justification of this political decision with a number of major programs”.
Pashinyan stated that a joint discussion with the Central Bank is expected to be held within a month on this topic and they will come to a conclusion.
