On February 16 Naira Zohrabyan, Chairwoman of the RA NA Standing Committee on European Integration, met Klaas van der Tempel, Ambassador, Special Representative for the Eastern Partnership and Eastern Neighbouring Countries of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Monique de Groot, Responsible for Armenia of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and Pieter J. Langenberg, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Armenia also attended the meeting.
Ms Zohrabyan has presented the ongoing negotiations over the Armenia-EU Association Agreement, noting that they are rather actively going on.
The sides touched upon the provisions on creating deep and comprehensive, free trade zone making an important part of the Association Agreement. Ms Zohrabyan also noted that from February 27 the negotiations over facilitating the entry visas and after adoption will launch with the EU, which will essentially ease the entry to the European Union countries for several groups.
The guests were interested in a number of issues of the upcoming parliamentary elections, in particular, how the political forces get ready for the elections and what expectations are there from international observation organizations. Ms Zohrabyan provided comprehensive information about the preparatory phase of the upcoming parliamentary elections, especially highlighting the activities of the OSCE and PACE long-term missions. She has noted that she personally has preliminary agreement in the PACE, according to which, before arriving in Armenia the Observation Mission being formed later, will be presented the problems, concerns provided by all political forces, especially to what is worth for international observers to pay attention. Klaas van der Tempel highlighted that initiative, noting that he would do his best in order the long-term observers in Armenia will be many and take into account all the concerns, which will note the political forces participating in the elections.
The parties also touched upon regional problems.