Wednesday, 7 May 2008
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan received a delegation headed by EU Special Representative in South Caucasus Peter Semneby. The delegation comprised Ms. Silvie Bavelar who is in charge of political questions within the EC Delegation in Armenia, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Republic of Armenia Serge Smessov, as well as policy advisers to the EU Special Representative in South Caucasus.
The Prime Minister briefed the guests on the current tasks and the challenges ahead of Armenia and its newly formed government and described the steps to take for their solution. Among priority actions, he named the efforts towards mitigating the impact of increased commodity prices, improving and reforming tax and customs administrations, achieving higher efficiency in the fight against corruption, getting the opposition involved in the execution of the government program, as well as providing for possibly greater transparency and publicity in all these processes. The parties have also referred to Armenia-Turkey relations and the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The development of EU-Armenia cooperation under the European Neighborhood Policy and the continuation of efforts towards the implementation of the ENP Action Plan have been emphasized on either side.
The Prime Minister advised that the price problem is being discussed with the World Bank and the IMF currently in order to take remedial action as soon as possible.
With reference to the dialog between the authorities and the opposition, Tigran Sargsyan reiterated his previously stated viewpoint consisting in that first of all we should have a government of responsibility, if we wish to have a constructive and responsible opposition. "We must start from ourselves by taking steps forward in order to win the trust of our people. I am convinced that our proposals are better than any other solutions possibly available in Armenia. We have reached out a hand of cooperation to Levon Ter-Petrosyan's supporters. We cannot wait for long as the problems are numerous and the time is short, especially as we have already proceeded to action," -the Prime Minister said.
Concerning the March 1 events and the subsequent developments, Tigran Sargsyan evoked the clearly stated position of the RA President and stressed that the authorities are interested in an unbiased and comprehensive investigation thereof.
