“Lithuania is one of the EU leading countries, which has a very serious approach to the Eastern Partnership program. Lithuania’s presidency is very important for Armenia, because Lithuania is interested that EU is actively working with the Eastern neighbors. It is beneficial for us. And until the Vilnius summit, the activation of this process is also related to the presidency of Lithuania in EU,”- expressed his opinion, today, the head of the “Analytical Center on Globalization and Regional Cooperation” Stepan Grigoryan during the debate on “Presentation of the forthcoming Lithuanian Chairmanship: Ahead of the priorities of the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius”. The debate is the joint initiative of the Centre and the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Armenia. To remind you that in late November, the Third Summit of the Eastern Partnership in Vilnius will be held, where it is envisaged that Armenia will sign the association agreement, an agreement on free, in-depth and comprehensive trade.
On the eve, President of Yerevan Press Club Boris Navasardyan, who coordinates the EU Eastern Partnership Civil Forum expressed his concerns about the fact that the clauses of EU negotiations are not made public. On this occasion, answering the question Aravot.am, Stepan Grigoryan said that if one of the negotiating parties does not want the clauses of the subjects of the negotiation to be known before the end of the negotiations, are normal,
because the negotiations will be exposed to a lot of changes. “As soon as the negotiation process is over, and there is an initial documentation, it is clear that it should be made public. I do not think that it is right to have the initial documentation public before the end of the negotiation process,”- said Stepan Grigoryan. To our question whether there are some issues under question, he ensured that there is nothing suspicious and after the end of the negotiations, it will become obvious. Moreover, the main clauses that are in the Association Agreement that is known to everyone regarding the trade, visa facilitation and so on, according to our interlocutor, is to the best of our interests. “We should not have great fear, but it’s good that the society wants to read the document,” – said he.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
