Estonia ratified Armenia's agreement with EU even before Armenia itself did

Estonia has ratified the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which was signed in Brussels on 24 November. The document will come into force upon ratification by all EU member states.

Estonia was the first country out of 28 EU member states to ratify the agreement before Armenia itself has done it.

Armenia’s Ambassador to Estonia Tigran Mkrtchyan explains that this was due to the agreement being signed in 2017 during the Estonian presidency of the Council of the European Union. In the ambassador’s opinion, it could also be regarded as an important message by Estonia, thereby appealing to other EU member-states to timely ratify this document.

Armenian experts hope that Estonia has thus given a start to ratification of the Agreement.

“Armenian diplomats should make active efforts so that the EU member states ratify the Agreement before the 2018 European Parliament elections. Otherwise, all member states will be busy with their domestic problems rather than with ratifying international treaties resulting in this process dragging on for a few more months,” said Tevan Poghosyan, the Executive Director of the International Center for Human Development NGO.

Armenia will probably ratify the agreement by the end of March.

The document has already been approved by the Armenian government. After the document is endorsed by the Constitutional Court, it will be submitted to parliament as a bill.

According to Armen Ashotyan, Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, the agreement includes some transitional provisions. It implies that certain provisions of the agreement can be implemented before the document is ratified:

“Namely, the matter concerns the provisions related to financial support of the EU which should come into effect before the final ratification by the European Parliament. But for that purpose it should first be ratified by the Armenian National Assembly.”

An inter-agency commission was set up in Armenia a few weeks ago to oversee the execution of the document and coordinate the activities contributing to its conclusion.

In its earlier publications JAMnews focused on talks related to document which lasted for nearly 2 years. The talks were on the initialing of the agreement in May 2017 as well as on the doubts voiced in Armenia’s expert circles that the document would finally be signed.

Find more details about the Agreement and how it was concluded in the JAMnews publication dated 24 November.

https://jam-news.net/?p=72057&lang=en