– Mr. Navasardyan, during the meeting with civil society representatives last year, which was organized in Brussels within the framework of the Eastern partnership project, it was decided to establish national platforms to support the cooperation between Armenia and the EU. In which phase is this process now?
– The Armenian delegates that participated in this forum established an initiative group, which established the “national platform” of the Armenian civil forum. In the end of March they made an announcement inviting the civic society institutions of Armenia to join this platform. There will be opportunities to be included in this platform during this year and the coming years, but it was decided that in the first phase the project will involve the organizations that have an experience of 3 years, and the activities of which comply with the priorities of the Eastern partnership project. They received about 170 applications. Besides those who had technical differences, the other 140 organizations will be included in the “national platform”. On June 7 there will be a founding meeting, where they will decide the principles of the work, our missions and direction of work. It would be desirable if the process of establishing these national platforms proceeded with the same speed in all countries. There is no active involvement in other countries as in Armenia, and definitely Armenia will be the first one from this prospective.
– What will be the activity of the organizations involved in the project? Will they work in the 4 thematic directions of the Eastern partnership project or they will work in different groups?
– I think some time later minimum 4 working groups will be established in compliance with the 4 thematic platforms of the Eastern partnership. According to the initiators, the main direction of activities will be the education work. The civil society institutions which have been included in the national platform will have to deliver the content, meaning and prospects of the Eastern partnership to the society. Through the time there may be other groups which have specific targets and fields of activities as well. The next important step will be the establishment of directions through recommendations to be the main ones in the relations between Armenia and the EU. It is also important that the national platform will also have partners, i.e. the NGOs of the EU countries included in the forum. It is about the implementation of bilateral responsibilities and efficient cooperation, and we can do bilateral control. We have not had such experience.
– Mr. Navasardyan, will the EU sign an associated agreement with Armenia within this project? Such process has been launched with Ukraine and Georgia already.
– The negotiations in this direction will start in June. The EU has already made an announcement informing that they are starting the work with our government.
– Definitely the Eastern Partnership project is the only one with its format, in which the participation of the civil society is essential. About one year has passed since the beginning of the project, are there expected results in terms of the participation of the civil society?
– The improvement in terms of the involvement of the civil society is evident. There has not been such case in the past when the civil society could have an institutional role in the relations between Armenia and the EU. We see that there are serious prospects, and when there is a practical cooperation between Armenia and the EU institutions, the civil society will always say its word and do its work.
– Last week the European Commission and European parliament adopted negative resolutions on Armenia. Do you think these developments may affect the EU-Armenia relations and the Eastern Partnership project specifically?
– I don’t think so. When politically interested institutions are trying to handle issues that they are not familiar with, there may be such suspicious decisions. In order to exclude such things it is very important to have a lot of contacts and exchange of opinions. For example, there will be a Day of Armenia in the European Parliament, and the active NGOs in the civil society forum will be invited as well. A number of issues will be discussed, and certainly we will try to present our concerns connected with those resolutions to exclude the repetition of such non-competent resolutions in the future.