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On June 10 the Head of the RA NA Delegation to PACE Hermine Naghdalyan, the members of the Delegation Naira Zohrabyan, Armen Rustamyan, Vahan Babayan and Levon Zurabyan met with Axel Fischer and Alan Mill, the Co-Rapporteurs on Armenia of the PACE Monitoring Committee in the parliament.

The Co-Rapporteurs aims to hear the Armenian side's views and opinions over a number of issues, particularly, the inner-political situation and parliamentary processes.

Hermine Naghdalyan has noted that Armenia cooperates with the PACE on the reforms being implemented in different spheres consonant with the assumed obligations.

In 2014 in the struggle against corruption Armenia adopted a concept of struggle against corruption in the system of public administration, on the basis of which an anti-corruption institutional system was created in 2015. An anti-corruption strategy and anti-corruption porgrammes of the spheres were worked out. The Government set up a Council for Struggle against Corruption and also functions the Commission on Ethics of High-Ranking Officials.

Presenting the steps taken in the judicial-legal reforms, Mrs Naghdalyan has noted that in the action programme for 2012-2014 the reforms of that sphere occupy a main place, which is also continuous in the action programme for 2015-2017. She touched upon the reforms made in the Judicial and Criminal Procedure Codes and the steps taken in the adoption of the Criminal Code.

At the guests’ request Hermine Naghdalyan also presented the process of the constitutional reforms. She underlined that the parliamentary and extra-parliamentary political parties, the NGOs submitted proposals on the draft concept of the constitutional reforms. She informed that the last version of the concept will be discussed in the NA.

Speaking about Armenia’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) Mrs Naghdalyan underlined that it was conditioned exclusively by the geo-political realities and stemmed from the RA security interests. In her word, the RA authorities repeatedly announced that joining the EEU does not mean split or weakening of the relations with the EU: the EU has been and continues to be the RA important partner.

Mrs Naghdalyan also touched upon the PACE resolutions on the NK problem. She expressed hope that the Assembly will maintain its principality on such sensitive issue, and the adopted resolutions will be consonant with the ongoing negotiations. The Head of the Delegation opined that the processes should continue and end in the Minsk Group format.

Naira Zohrabyan has underlined that by her impression “the Stockholm syndrome” begins to work in the Council of Europe. In her word, the Council of Europe has become the hostage of Azerbaijan and has started to show warm feelings to Azerbaijan, which has taken the CoE as a hostage.

Armen Rustamyan touched upon the position of the CoE in the NK issue, the non-constructive steps of Azerbaijan in the negotiating process, noting that Azerbaijan connects the democratization process exclusively with the existence of the NK problem.

In the course of the meeting the sides also referred to the frozen conflicts, the regional problems, the Armenian Genocide Centennial and other issues of bilateral interest.