Partnership Agreement with Armenia

WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE AGREEMENT AND THE DECISIONS?

The main aims of the agreement are:

enhance the comprehensive political and economic partnership and cooperation between the parties;
strengthen the basis for political dialogue on all areas of mutual interest;
contribute to the strengthening of democracy and of political, economic and institutional stability in Armenia;
promote, preserve and strengthen peace and stability at both regional and international level;
enhance cooperation in the area of freedom, security and justice;
enhance mobility and people-to-people contacts;
support Armenia’s efforts to develop its economic potential through international cooperation;
establish enhanced trade cooperation;
establish conditions for increasingly close cooperation in other areas of mutual interest.

Council Decision (EU) 2018/104 approves the EU’s signature to the partnership agreement. Council Decision (EU) 2021/270 approves the agreement itself.

KEY POINTS

The agreement forms the basis for the EU and Armenia to work together for the benefit of their citizens. Those benefits include:

providing a better regulatory environment to improve the business climate and investment opportunities;
creating more jobs in the green energy sector.

basing the governance of EU-Armenia relations on EU and international standards to provide a more stable and predictable business environment;
liberalising bilateral trade in many sectors;
opening up procurement opportunities in the EU to Armenian businesses, and vice versa.

introducing a strong intellectual property system allowing Armenian artists to benefit in the same way as their counterparts;
improving transparency in public procurement procedures;
improving labour standards for Armenian workers such as in employment contracts and for occupational hazards.

enabling more competition in the energy sector;
removing barriers to trade such as unnecessary labelling requirements.

enhancing nuclear security in Armenia;
increasing product safety and consumer protection;
upgrading cooperation on fighting criminal activities including organised crime and terrorism.

adopting EU environmental standards;
developing clean sources of energy.

providing EU training and advice to improve the quality of education in Armenia;
allowing Armenian universities to participate in joint research programmes with other European universities under the Horizon 2020 programme as well as in the EU4Innovation initiative.

increasing attention by both parties to the importance of free elections, freedom of the judiciary, the right to a fair trial and human rights generally;
establishing a Civil Society Platform composed of Armenian and EU organisations, to monitor the implementation of the agreement and make recommendations to the Armenian authorities and to the EU.

DATE OF ENTRY INTO FORCE

The agreement was provisionally applied since 1 June 2018. It entered into force on 1 March 2021.

BACKGROUND

Armenia is one of the beneficiaries of the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) which provides the bulk of the funding to the 16 countries covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy.

For further information see:

Factsheet on EU-Armenia relations ( European External Action Service ).

MAIN DOCUMENTS

Comprehensive and enhanced Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Armenia, of the other part (OJ L 23, 26.1.2018, pp. 4-466)

Council Decision (EU) 2018/104 of 20 November 2017 on the signing, on behalf of the Union, and provisional application of the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Armenia, of the other part (OJ L 23, 26.1.2018, pp. 1-3)