McAllister: Successful implementation of Armenia-EU framework  agreement important from the point of view of further modernization  of Armenia

ArmInfo. The European Parliament will hold the last vote on July 4 on the issue of approving the agreement with Armenia on a comprehensive and expanded partnership.  On this June 18 at a press conference in Yerevan, said the head of the Committee on Foreign Policy of the European Parliament David McAllister.

At the same time, he expressed the conviction that the agreement,  without doubt, by a majority of votes will be accepted. "The  ratification of this framework agreement is only the beginning, and  its successful implementation is important from the point of view of  further modernization of Armenia." The successful implementation of  the agreement will attract investment from the EU, help stimulate  trade with the EU, and fix concrete results. "The EU is here to draw  a helping hand, we provide financial and technical assistance,  reflected in the growing ambition in the relations between Armenia  and the EU," the MEP said. At the same time, he added that the EU is  guided by certain conditions, in particular concrete results in the  implementation of reforms and their effectiveness.

He also noted that from the first of June this year the partial  implementation of the agreement began, which also does not interfere  with Armenia's cooperation with other partners. At the same time,  McAllister expressed the conviction that the document is beneficial  to Armenia and the EU. "I do not see any serious problems in the  issue of ratification of the agreement," he said.

In his turn, the head of the EU delegation to Armenia Piotr Switalski  stressed that they did not receive any signals that the process of  ratification of the agreement on the part of the EU member states is  delayed. He noted that each country has its own internal state  processes, but the process is moving quite dynamically, and the  number of countries that have ratified the agreement is growing  dynamically. "We are confident that the process will be successfully  completed, but for the time being, 80% of the agreement has already  entered into a provisional force and started to be applied,"  concluded Switalski.

The framework agreement on comprehensive and expanded partnership  between Armenia and the EU was signed on November 24 in Brussels. The  Armenian parliament in April 2018 unanimously ratified the agreement.  On the part of the EU member states it has already been ratified by  Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland and Bulgaria. Since June 1 of this  year, a temporary application of the framework agreement has begun.