On April 5, in Brussels, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan signed the agreement “On cooperation between the competent authorities in the field of legal cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and the European Union in the field of criminal proceedings of the Republic of Armenia and the European Union Agency for Cooperation in the Field of Criminal Justice (Eurojust)”.
The EU Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders signed the Agreement on behalf of the EU and on behalf of Belgium, which holds the Presidency of the EU Council, and on behalf of the EU member states, the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, the Minister of Justice and the North Sea Paul Van Tigchelt signed the document.
Before the official signing ceremony, the signing officials gave remarks.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, as well as the officials of the EU and Belgium, emphasized in their remarks that Armenia was the first to begin negotiations in 2021 on the conclusion of the agreement and today, after the successful completion of the negotiations, is the first to sign it.
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Minister Mirzoyan’s remarks are presented below.
“Honorable Minister,
Distinguished Commissioner,
Dear President,
Dear colleagues,
It is really a great pleasure to sign today the agreement which is aimed at further strengthening the cooperation between the Republic of Armenia and the European Union in the field of justice, rule of law and fight against serious transnational crimes.
I would like to extend my sincere words of gratitude to all colleagues here in the EU institutions, the Belgian Presidency and President Hamran for his personal contribution, as well as my colleagues in Armenia’s ministries and agencies for taking care of these negotiations. As already said, Armenia was interested in signing this agreement from the very beginning, we were the first to start the negotiations, and I am proud that we are the first to conclude the negotiations and sign the agreement.
Besides, I would like to emphasize that we already had close cooperation with Eurojust, with Europol even without this agreement, but now this agreement comes to strengthen and institutionalize this cooperation. By signing this Agreement, we also make one step closer to the full implementation of the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement but also this opens doors to new opportunities for exchange of expertise and capacity building, as we discussed earlier.
This agreement will have an indispensable role when it comes to fostering sectoral collaboration between the competent authorities of Armenia and the European Union, aimed at facilitating mutual legal assistance, elaborating joint investigation strategies and assisting in the resolution of jurisdictional issues. It’s noteworthy that with Europol, we have already signed several documents which our Parliament is set to ratify these days.
So congratulations and thank you.”