The civil society representatives urge the European Union to specify more precise and strict criteria to evaluate the reforms Armenian authorities carried out within the European Partnership policy. The EU representative – who believes the criteria to be precise – says the criteria are worked out through long discussions with Armenian authorities and civil society representatives.
At the Media Center hosted discussion Andrej Didenko, Political Officer at the European Delegation to Armenia, said: “Armenia made limited progress in the implementation of the action plan, with some efforts to establish deep and sustainable democracy and put some microeconomic policies and structural reforms in place.”
Didenko noted “the lack of trust in the judicial system persisted; the fight against corruption remains as one of the key issues. When it comes to judicial reforms, we have noticed the progress with regard to free legal aid.”
The civil society representatives in Armenia, however, believe it vital for the new EU-Armenia partnership format to have more well-specified interim and long-term evaluation criteria for funding.
Mariam Matevosyan, Policy Fellowship Program Coordinator at OSF – Armenia, described the European Partnership policy less compelling which, she believes has led to the manipulation of reforms in Armenia. The areas where the manipulation is observed more often embrace corruption, discrimination and domestic violence. One of the possible reasons for this situation is that the domestic violence law on is not seen as a priority. “There is a discrepancy between priorities and results. And the same persists in the enactment of laws on corruption or gender equality.”
The full article is available at http://media-center.am/en/European-Neighbourhood-Policy-Progress-Reports-in-the-Revision-of-the-Neighbourhood-Policy