ARMENIA AND THE EU’S EUROPEAN NEIGHBORHOOD POLICY PROGRAM

Sergey MINASIAN

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Sergey Minasian, Ph.D. (Hist.), director of the Scientific-Research Center of the Southern Caucasus’ Regional Security and Integration Problems, Russian-Armenian (Slavic) State University, researcher at the Institute of History, Republic of Armenia National Academy of Sciences (Erevan, Armenia)

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1. Introduction

Integration into the European structures is a priority task of Armenia’s foreign policy, which is shown by the republic’s cooperation with the EU, Council of Europe, NATO, and other organizations, as well as by its bilateral relations with continental states. What is more, Armenia is nurturing the hope of becoming a full-fledged member of the European Union in the future.

On 14 June, 2004, the European Union Council made a decision to include the South Caucasian states in its European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) program and approved the ENP Strategy Paper submitted in May of the same year by the European Commission. The European Neighborhood Policy program is based on the Wider Europe-Neighborhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbors project, prepared by the European Commission in March 2003. The purpose of this document is to develop a universal, proportional approach which also includes financial mechanisms and should meet the development requirements of international and regional cooperation on the periphery of the enlarging European Union. We will note that this document was adopted right before the most extensive enlargement of the European Union to date—in May 2004, ten new states swelled this organization’s ranks. In October 2004, the European Commission began preparing Country Reports for the Southern Caucasus, which will form the………………..

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