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On June 4, at the joint sitting of the Standing Committees on European Integration and on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs the debate of the report on the RA State Budget Execution for 2023 continued.

The Chair of the Standing Committee on European Integration Arman Yeghoyan and the Chair of the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Tsovinar Vardanyan moderated the sitting.

First, the RA Deputy Minister of Finance Vahan Sirunyan presented the financial information on the receiving credits and grants.

During the financial year, 10bln 186mln AMD official grants were received from the European Union, the EU structures and the EU states, 6bln 421mln AMD out of them were targeted, 3bln 765mln AMD – non targeted. The official grants received from the EU were 77.7% of the total official grants.

About 19bln 890mln AMD loans were received from the EU, which were targeted, being 16% of loans received by the external support. Expenditures were incurred at their expense: 13bln 485mln AMD at the expense of loans, 5bln 834mln AMD – at the expense of grants.

The budgetary expenditure spent at the expense of the funds received from the EU sources was 29.7%. The subloans provided at the expense of the EU loans was 7bln 222 AMD, making 72.6% of the provided subloans.

The RA Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Paruyr Hovhannsiyan presented the evaluation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the RA-EI Partnership in terms of the state budget execution for 2023. The year was unprecedented. The Deputy Minister underscored the RA Prime Minister’s speech in the European Parliament: For the first time the Head of Armenia was invited to give a speech in the European Parliament. The Foreign Minister’s invitation followed it to take part in the work meeting of the EU Foreign Ministers’ Council.

As a new sphere of cooperation, Paruyr Hovhannisyan underlined the security, taking into consideration the situation and the sensibility towards that sphere. 2 meetings of dialogue on Armenian-EU political and security issues were held. According to the Deputy Minister, the most tangible results of that sphere was the deployment of the long-term civilian mission in Armenia.

As an important direction Paruyr Hovhannisyan indicated the rise of diversification and resistance of Armenia’s economy. It was noted that last year a new format was launched in those all directions aimed at the update of the RA-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement. “In that context we hosted the EU relevant mission and now we are actively discussing the enhancement and deepening of the priorities of our partnership, which will get to qualitatively a new degree the Partnership,” the rapporteur said.

Speaking about the cooperation in the humanitarian sphere, the Deputy Minister documented that the EU continues remaining the biggest donor and mentioned that the support to our compatriots forcibly displaced from Nagorno Karabakh exceeds 12 million. According to him, the EU also pays attention to the disastrous situation happened in the north of Armenia. The cooperation with the European Parliament was especially stressed.

The works in the Eastern Partnership format continue, Armenia is actively involved in different events and in the works of different bodies.

According to the Deputy Minister, the positive move should be recorded in the near future in the launch on the RA-EU visa liberalisation.

As an invitee, the RA Minister of Economy Gevorg Papoyan touched upon the issues of the Armenia-EU economic agenda, which are in the domain of the Ministry’s management.

The rapporteurs also answered the deputies’ questions.