Suren Papikyan Had an Online Meeting With the EU Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin

• 06.19.2020, 17:32
•  Europe,  World,  Armenia

On June 18, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure Suren Papikyan had an online meeting with the EU Ambassador Andrea Wiktorin, Ministry reports.

The Minister thanked the EU for support to Armenia in fight against COVID-19 highlighted that the crisis provides prerequisites for strengthening further this multi-year partnership.

Among a number of areas of bilateral and multilateral cooperation the Minister and Ambassador touched upon the furthering cooperation in civil aviation sector reforms and towards actions to improve the state of air safety.

The Minister said, "Currently, rigorous works are underway towards the improvement of issues in the air safety by the MoTAI and CAC. Armenia is an EaP partner country, which has always expressed readiness to improve its internal legislation, bringing its economic operational standards in line with European criteria. I am hopeful, that with EU assistance we will upgrade the level of aviation safety by introducing air safety standards required by the EU".

Attaching great importance to the systematic and targeted work to eliminate problems in aviation Ambassador Wiktorin mentioned: "Of course, this problem has been there longer than 1.5 years and no adequate steps were taken to prevent it for a long time. But this situation can be also seen as the possibility for Armenia to increase security level in aviation and has a greater benefit and strength when overcome this problem. We need to work together to solve this problem".
During the meeting Minister Papikyan and Ambassador Wiktorin discussed current state of grant and loan assistance programs including community infrastructure – water, sewage system installation, cooperation in the area of energy and the Caucasus Transmission Network, as well as further strengthening cooperation in regional projects.

On both sides, the interlocutors confirmed readiness for enhancement and efficiency of bilateral relations.