Armenia highly values the resolution adopted by the European Parliament, suggesting the possibility of granting the republic candidate status for accession to the European Union, and believes that now the decision lies with the European Council and Commission. This was stated in an interview with BMG by the chairman of the permanent committee of the Armenian parliament on European integration issues, a deputy from the ruling faction "Civil contract," Arman Yeghoyan.
Yeghoyan considers the overwhelming support of the resolution by European parliamentarians to be a significant development. Especially regarding the broad consensus in such a representative body as the European Parliament on granting Armenia candidate status for EU accession.
"This also means that now the other new institutions and namely European Council and Commission should give their feedback, or we should somehow negotiate with them on the development, on the further development of the Armenia-EU relations. Also given the current status of our relations, the current phase of implementation of the reforms undertaken by the existing agreement. So, this is something that should be revised," he said, emphasizing the need to develop new partnership priorities, which is already underway.
Meanwhile, he advised against rushing the European integration process, as Armenia must go through "a certain path until we reach the phase mentioned by the European Parliament." "But the resolution itself, as an expression of political will, is very important," Yeghoyan said.
According to Yeghoyan, before becoming a candidate for EU accession, Armenia must implement reforms that have already been agreed upon, while also identifying new partnership priorities.
"We still have to implement reforms that have already been undertaken, after which and parallel to which we should come up with new partnership priorities to come up with maybe new kind of an agreement which will include certain parts of the four freedoms. In this case, I'm talking about freedom of movement of people and freedom of movement of goods. Very important part both for our economy and our people to people contact. Right now, we are working on the visa liberalization on the launch of visa liberalization which is a very important step towards the phase that the European Parliament is talking about, whenever and if we are there," said the deputy, advising to focus on implementing steps that "can be done right now, and only then strive for more."
Earlier, BMG reported that the resolution allowing Armenia to be granted candidate status for EU accession was adopted by members of the European Parliament on March 13 with 504 votes in favor, 4 against, and 32 abstentions. Thus, the European Parliament proposed Brussels to consider the possibility of granting Armenia candidate status for accession to the European Union.
Armenia, at the level of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, welcomed the adoption of this document. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also stated at a government meeting on March 14 that it should become the subject of public discussions in Armenia. According to him, this is another reason to discuss the vision of the future of the Republic of Armenia.
