On April 4 the delegation members of the House of Representatives of the Kingdom of Belgium met the members of Armenia-Belgium parliamentary friendship group.

Arshak Mkhitaryan, head of the Armenia-Belgium parliamentary friendship group highlighted the inter-parliamentary in the development of Armenian-Belgian relations, considering necessary the activation of cooperation between the friendship groups of two parliaments. Underscoring that Euro-Integration is the foreign political priority of our country, Mr. Mkhitaryan found important to comply the legislation of Armenia with European standards and noted that the National Assembly now is working on the reforms of Electoral Code and Constitution. The cooperation between the marzes, the development of economic cooperation was highlighted, effective cooperation in the sphere of diamond production.

The Belgian side also highlighted the activation of cooperation between the parliaments of two countries: in this sense leaving important role to the activity of the parliamentary groups. The guests touched upon the issue of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide by Turkey, noting that one of the preconditions of Turkey to join the Council of Europe is the issue of recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

During the meeting other issues of mutual interest were also discussed.

In the parliament the delegation members of the House of Representatives of the Kingdom of Belgium also met the representatives of the NGOs of Armenia.

The high-ranking officials are interested in the activities of the NGOs functioning in our country, as well as their ideas and proposals. Being led by the intention of having sincere and open talk, the participants of the meeting raised questions being of interest for the society. Anahit Bayandur, Chairman of the Armenian Committee of Helsinki Citizens Assembly drew the attention of those present to the issue of not providing air to A1+ TV Company. So, the society was deprived of the sounding word of professional and independent TV channel, says she. Jemma Hasrayan, Chairman of the Women’s Association with University Education said that the public movements are very active and she gave a speech, proposing cooperation with NGOs. Speaking about involving the women in the management and political systems, she noted that the number of women in the legislative body of Armenia is 5%. We learnt from the Belgian side that the number of women in their parliament is 33%. The Belgians reached this index not only as a result of interest of women towards the political life, but they defined by law “positive discrimination” in favour of women.

During the meeting the sides also touched upon the process of the initiated Constitutional reforms, the issues of corruption and poverty in Armenia.

Gyulnara Shahinyan, Chairman of the organization “Democracy Today” thanked the Belgian guests for the promotion of the European Union to the Caucasus region, noting that there are many key questions, and it’s possible to solve them with joint efforts.