On June 9 Ago Monitoring Group of CE Committee of Ministers headed by Roland Wegener, Permanent Representative of Germany to the Council of Europe met the members of the Armenian delegation in PACE in the parliament. Bojana Urumova, Special Representative of the CE General Secretary and Christian Ter-Stepanian, RA Permanent Representative to CE attended the meeting.

Welcoming the guests, Armen Roustamyan, member of the Armenian delegation in PACE, Chairman of the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations, noted that the Ago Group’s visits also give opportunity to evaluate today’s situation once more in the context of the process of Armenia’s Euro integration and turn to more concretely the arising problems on its way and solve them.

Mr. Wegener noted that the goal of the visit is to monitor the process of the 67 new laws emanating from reformed Constitution and highlighted the expertise conclusion of the Venice Commission before discussing them in the committees of the National Assembly and at plenary session, as well as adopting in the first reading. Mr. Wegener considered necessary the issue of improving the law on Television and Radio, the problem of independence of the Television and Radio National Commission, the reforms of the Electoral Code, attaching importance to holding free and fair parliamentary election in 2007, which will strengthen the confidence towards the parliament. The formation of the Institute of the Human Rights Defender was also higlighted.

Mr. Roustamyan also highlighted the joint holding of the process of the legislative reforms with the Venice Commission, considering unacceptable the adoption of such laws (reforms of Electoral Code), which won’t comply with the European standards. Mr. Roustamyan noted that all the political forces are sure that it’s necessary to create all the possibilities at legislative level for holding the 2007 elections in compliance with European highest standards.

Gurgen Arsenyan, member of the delegation, head of ULP faction, attached importance to the necessity of having laws of high quality, highly evaluating in this context the cooperation with the Venice Commission and gave as an example the law on Constitutional Court passed recently. Mr. Arsenyan also highlighted the adoption of the legislative package of the judicial legal system reforms, which is still at the stage of active debates.

Stepan Demirchyan, head of Ardautiun/Justice faction and Aleksan Karapetyan secretary of Azgayin Miabanutiun/National Unity faction also highlighted having a relevant legislation in compliance with European standards, considering as a necessary and important precondition the use of the laws in practice.

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