ArmInfo.European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and EU enlargement negotiations, Johannes Hahn will visit Armenia on January 29. This was reported to ArmInfo in the EU delegation in Armenia.
According to the source, during the visit, the European Commissioner will hold talks with President Armen Sargsyan and the Prime MinisterNikol Pashinyan On the same day, Johannes Khan will be received by Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, after which a press conference of the RA Foreign Minister and a European official will be held.Rana ArmInfo, citing the report of the European Commission, reported that the European Union will provide Armenia with a loan of more than 700 million euros for the implementation of infrastructure projects. The report notes that the credit resources allocated to Armenia will become part of the EU's general assistance to countries participating in the Eastern Partnership program - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
The total budget of the program, which will be funded jointly by the European Union and the World Bank, will be 13 billion euros. The project involves the construction of roads and railways with a total length of 4,800 kilometers, as well as the development of ports, airports, logistics centers and checkpoints. Brussels believes that the development of infrastructure in the Eastern Partnership countries - Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine - will contribute to economic growth in these countries and the creation of new jobs. Some projects are planned to be completed already in 2020, and some only by 2030. It should be noted that earlier in Yerevan they have already designated the directions of financing.
Among the priority projects, in particular, was the reconstruction of the Artashat-Agarak highway, which is part of the construction of the North-South transport corridor. The project is expected to be implemented by the EUwill provide 450 million euros. Until 2030, the main task is the program to modernize the Yerevan- Vanadzor highway, which costs 7.5 million euros, reconstruct the Gyumri-Bavr highway - 41 million euros, and build a new border checkpoint inMegri - 15 million euros.
We also recall that at the Eastern Partnership Summit in 2017, six member states of the program were included in the Trans-European Transport Network, a large-scale project whose goal is to improve the transport system of the European Union and its neighbors. The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a program of the European Union, launched in Paris in 2009. The idea of the project was presented by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski. The EAP sets itself the main task - the development of EU relations with the six countries of the former Soviet Union: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Armenia in 2017 at the summit in Brussels signed an agreement on a comprehensive and expanded partnership with the EU.