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“Armenia is determined to continue with the implementation of the deep and large-scale reforms aimed at fighting corruption, ensuring free economic competition, raising transparency of government activities, safeguarding the independence of judiciary, guaranteeing freedom of speech, and strengthening the civil society, which constitute the pivot of Armenia-EU relationship,” Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said in his speech at the third Summit of the Heads of State of the Eastern Partnership countries in Vilnius. 

The President thanked the Lithuanian authorities and European Commission for hosting and running well the third Eastern Partnership Summit. “The five-year history of the Eastern Partnership testifies the necessity and viability of this format. It effectively complements the architecture of pan-European co-operation and provides with an opportunity to build qualitatively new, closer and expanded relationship upon the basis of shared European values. Developing such a relationship stems from Armenia’s and Armenian people’s spiritual-cultural and historical-political heritage, and it is the conscious demand of our society,” he said.

Speaking about the achieved results, the President said, “The Eastern Partnership enabled us to give new impetus to the modernization efforts to our state and society upon the principles of democracy, human rights and rule of law. It stimulated the agenda of our wide-scale reforms. Let me merely refer to the last three general electoral processes to demonstrate the measurable outcomes that raised the benchmark in this area and significantly strengthened the Armenian electoral system.”

According to the President, “we have reconfirmed our commitment to drive through the reforms underway in our countries by the Joint Declaration to be adopted by the Vilnius Summit.”

“Armenia is determined to continue with the implementation of the deep and large-scale reforms aimed at fighting corruption, ensuring free economic competition, raising transparency of government activities, safeguarding the independence of judiciary, guaranteeing freedom of speech, and strengthening the civil society, which constitute the pivot of Armenia-EU relationship. Building and strengthening Armenian nationhood upon European model has been the conscious choice of ours, and that process is hence irreversible,” the President said.

Concluding, the President said, “There are high expectations from the Vilnius Summit. We view this Summit as an important stage in the development of our relations with the EU on a more streamlined and realistic foundations. It is exactly in this context that we read the final document of the Summit and Armenia-European Union Joint Declaration to be concluded today.”