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Armenian National Assembly Chief of Staff-Secretary General Ara Saghatelyan delivered welcoming remarks at the 2nd working meeting of Secretaries General of the Parliaments of Eastern Partnership (EaP) Countries taking place in the Armenian parliament.

The full text of the speech, released by the parliament’s press service, is presented below:

“Dear colleagues, friends,

I am glad to welcome you on this warm December day in Yerevan, at the 2nd working meeting of Secretaries General of the Parliaments of Eastern Partnership Countries.

I would like to express my gratitude for finding possibility and time to participate in our working meeting, which, I believe, will serve for the benefit of the two countries’ parliaments and peoples and become a platform of ideas and exchange of the best experience.

I thank our German colleagues for the initiative and readiness of forming and strengthening our platform, I assure that we’ll do our best to ensure its efficiency.

Unfortunately, our colleagues from Azerbaijan and Belarus didn’t join us at this meeting. It’s based on objective reasons: it is related to their personal workload, as well as the regulations that we have set in Tbilisi. Nevertheless, our colleagues will be best informed about the procedure and results of the meeting in Yerevan and will be involved in the further cooperation processes by the principle of voluntarism, according to the agreements reached within the framework of Tbilisi Memorandum.

Dear friends,

During my tenure I have come to the conclusion that the secretary general-chief of staff of a parliament is not a work, but a mission. This ministerial office is much more complicated than the work of the majority of the ministers in our states in hierarchic aspect.

And we fulfill our mission of ensuring the institutional activities of the parliament, meantime implementing necessary reforms for tomorrow’s effective work and planning its development for the next few years.

This is a mission, and we should always keep the level needed for its implementation, be at the top of changes and often swim against the tide.”