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Armenia and the European Union have no ‘deficit’ of knowing each other very well and working together in a very tactical way to implement the important bilateral agenda, Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said at a joint news conference with Federica Mogherini, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, summing up the outcomes of the second EU-Armenia Partnership Council meeting held in Brussels on Thursday.

His comments came in response to a Deutsche Welle correspondent’s question whether PM Nikol Pashinyan considered leading the Armenian delegation to the Partnership Council, traditionally led by the country's FM. "I presume it would have been quite symbolic to show in what are the priorities of your Government in foreign policy," the reporter noted. 

“I also recall that it was a nice try in that Armenia does pay attention to the form but is very much focused on substance. So far is whom is concerned, again, I would repeat that we had a very dynamic year of exchanges and discussions at all levels with the direct engagement of the Prime Minister. And with visits. It was a very busy year in that respect. And we are not going to stop.

"I just stressed in the introduction three visits of the prime minister. The bilateral visit was in March this year, previously there was a visit with a very strong engagement in Brussels in 2018, when we had the engagement of all the senior officials of the European Union including President Tusk, President Junker and High Representative Mogherini. So I think the Prime Minister knows very well personally all the senior leadership of the European Union out of this very extensive dynamic dialogue and engagement. So there is no question about that. So, I also have to mention the engagement of the Prime Minister at the EaP10 in May. That’s as far as the Prime Minister is concerned.

"As regard to the substance, I would also want to invite the attention to the way in which we have organized our work in terms of the implementation of what I call the constitutional framework of our relationship, which is the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement. And for that we have very important coordinating mechanism in Armenia, which is chaired by the Vice Prime Minister of Armenia, and which includes all the agencies, government agencies and ministries in a very extensive and very engaging work, the result of which is the road-map which I already called as the targeted, structured document for targeted, structured implementation of the CEPA. We are represented by the huge number of colleagues from the line ministries. This is the way we work and this is the way we are consolidated in making blood to what we called shared value-based relationship between Armenia and European Union.

"So I think we have no deficit of knowing each other very well and working together in a very tactical way to implement the important agenda we have before us,” the Armenian FM replied.