Armenia and the EU signed two agreements on Thursday on Armenia’s participation in the EU’s Customs and Fiscalis programmes, paving the way for the country to take part in their activities alongside EU Member States and other participating countries.

Earlier, the EU Council adopted temporary trade liberalisation measures for Armenian products, covering around 80% of Armenian exports to the EU. The long-awaited measures came amidst Russian restrictions on Armenian exports which were launched in April.

The agreements were signed by Eduard Hakobyan, Chair of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee, and Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth.

In its statement, the EU described Armenia’s participation in the programmes as ‘an important step in further strengthening operational cooperation in the areas of customs and taxation, allowing Armenian’s customs and tax authorities to participate in various collaborative activities and to benefit from a wide-ranging training and human competency building activities portfolio’.

‘All these new cooperation avenues are of particular importance considering Armenia’s intention to get closer to the EU as being Armenia’s most important economic partner’, the statement added.

The state-run outlet Armenpress reported that the agreements aim to ‘modernise Armenia’s customs and tax systems, promote the adoption of European experience, develop digital capabilities and expand international information exchange’.

Armenia will pay an operational contribution and a participation fee, with an 80% reduction envisaged for the operational contribution, calculated based on the programme’s budget and Armenia’s GDP.

In an interview with Armenpress, Hakobyan identified three main areas of cooperation that are particularly important for Armenia: the exchange of experience and professional capacity-building, sector-specific expert cooperation, and the possibility of joining the European transit system.

Hakobyan described the latter as ‘the most important one for businesses’, saying it would allow goods to move between Armenia and the EU ‘more efficiently, facilitate border crossings and accelerate trade’.

‘The Armenian side plans to study how the system operates and the steps required to join it as quickly as possible, so that exporters shipping goods from Armenia to Europe and importers bringing goods from Europe to Armenia can feel its positive impact sooner’, Hakobyan said.