EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian signed a new strengthened over-arching EU-Armenia partnership agreement on the fringes of the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels on Friday 24 November.
At the signing ceremony, Mogherini said the agreement expands the framework of cooperation between the EU and Armenia, boosting cooperation in the domains of energy, transport and the environment. She said it would lead to greater mobility and an improved business and investment environment. The agreement is based on democracy, the rule of law, and human rights and backs the peaceful solution of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh. Nalbandian said the partnership opened a new chapter in bilateral relations and would lead them to a qualitatively new level.
Launched in December 2015 (see EUROPE 11447), the negotiations over the agreement, the very first between the EU and a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, were concluded in March 2017 (see EUROPE 11735). Armenia decided in the autumn of 2013 to not sign an Association Agreement with the EU, but to join the Eurasian Economic Union with Russia instead (see EUROPE 10914), after confirming its commitment in November 2013 (see EUROPE 10974) to developing cooperation with the EU. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)