During his visit to Armenia, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy in the second Barroso Commission Stefan Fule had a meeting with the representatives of different NA factions. After the meeting Former FM of Armenia, Vartan Oskanian wrote on his Facebook page that he had a feeling that Fule was disappointed and pessimistic about Armenia’s present and future. According to Oskanian, Fule noted in his speech that “the International Donors conference won’t be held before the upcoming presidential elections in Armenia” and taken “the inner political and social situations and developments in Armenia, EU will never sign the EU Association Agreement with Armenia before 2013”.
EuFoA Secretary General Dr. Michael Kambeck, commenting on Oskanian’s post on Facebook, noted: “If people read or listen to what Fule himself said in his speech, they will see that he clearly put the stress on the positive while saying that there is still work to be done. Fule had no need to be so positive but he chose to be. It is even possible, that in the conversation with the opposition Mr. Fule talked a bit more about the negative points, but quite frankly the EU has not expressed any opinion in any document or in any meeting or in any other publication which would allow for an overall negative conclusion. On the contrary, Fule said that Armenia has made very good progress with reforms, and negotiations for an Association Agreement are going very well. Besides he announced the increase of financial aid in line with the EU’s more for more principle. Currently in the whole Eastern Partnership we are the country which makes the best development. If you look around: in Ukraine the trend is strongly downwards, even in Georgia the trend for rule of law and democracy is downwards. As for Azerbaijan and Belarus, we don’t even need to talk about them, they are autocratic countries and developing further negatively.
For Armenia it’s different. For example, recently here in Brussels I have had conversations with different EU representatives and everyone was very happy that finally the question of “A1+” has been resolved. There are a lot of things where progress is strongly seen by the EU. I don’t think it is fair to put into the commissioner’s mouth the words that the he has a negative assessment on Armenia.
As for the international Donors conference, Dr. Kambeck said. “Before the summer break it was already very likely that it would not be possible to organize the conference before the elections, because of all the necessary preparation work. I don’t see any change or any development in that sense. On the contrary, Armenia is on the right track. This conference needs to be prepared very well. It shouldn’t be rushed to happen quickly before the elections, but it should be well organized so it will have a good result for Armenia.”
