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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is in Belgium on a working visit, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker made statements for mass media representatives following their talks in Brussels on Tuesday.

In his speech, the European Commission head welcomed the PM and congratulated him on last year’s snap parliamentary elections, noting the victory of his political force is a piece of good news for Armenia and for them, the PM’s office said.

“The prime minister has pinned the reforms and the cooperation with the European Union at the heart of his agenda and we welcome it. The more the Republic of Armenia is reformed, the more we will support Armenia, both financially and politically,” Juncker said.

The European official also unveiled plans to provide Armenia with €176 million for the protection of human rights and fundamental reforms in 2017-2020, adding, however, there is still a lot of work to do, especially as regards the fight against corruption and the judicial reform in Armenia.

“We know that the prime minister treats those goals seriously and intends to work in that direction. We also talked about the visa liberalization dialogue.

Today, as we have mentioned several times, the technical conditions have already been met, and the time has come to cooperate with all member states so that we can move forward together.

I myself and Commissioner Hahn are ready to support this process as much as possible, and while talking to the PM, we noted that we were going to launch a stronger dialogue with those member states consistent in this matter. But we, as the European Commission, stand for the start of talks on the visa liberalization dialogue as soon as possible. This is important for both Armenia and the European Union. This is a matter of strong commitment for us as we want more Armenians to travel to the European Union and vice versa.

We do not want people to perceive us only through institutions, we want people to travel freely so that the Armenians could come to Europe without a visa, get closer and better know us. We have also developed six projects to boost ties with neighbors. Continuation is crucial: people need to communicate with each other in addition to their states and governments. And we are trying to do everything in this matter.

I spent more time with the prime minister than I had planned. Although I must be off in a few minutes, I will pay close attention to my friend Nikol and the Commissioner.

I must say that Armenia and the European Union are moving forward together. These words are mainly addressed to the Armenian participants in this press conference, we are allies and we are ready to assist Armenia as much as you may wish,” Juncker said in his statement.