The Third Steering Committee Meeting of European Union and Council of Europe’s Partnership for Good Governance project on “Strengthening institutional capacities to fight and prevent corruption in Armenia” took place in Yerevan, on 3 May 2022. 

The Project’s Steering Committee Meeting was co-chaired by the representatives of the Council of Europe Secretariat and Yerevan Office and the European Union Delegation to Armenia, with the participation of representatives of key national institutions involved in the prevention and fight against corruption and money laundering in Armenia, namely the Ministry of Justice, the Corruption Prevention Commission (CPC), the Office of the General Prosecutor, the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC), the Investigative Committee, the National Security Service, the Civil Service Bureau, the Financial Monitoring Centre and the National Assembly.

The Steering Committee members took stock of the project’s implemented and ongoing activities and results achieved so far, and discussed possible adjustments to the workplan for the remaining implementation period, based on an updated understanding of current priorities and needs up to the end of the project’s implementation period (February 2023).

Participants highlighted the importance of the project’s contribution to recent and ongoing anti-corruption reforms in the country, including in the development of anti-corruption legislation and in substantive capacity-building of the Corruption Prevention Commission and other institutions of the national system. The discussions also allowed to identify new opportunities for collaboration, to further ensure the adaptation of the project’s support to the evolving needs of Armenian stakeholders. This approach intends to optimise the relevance and effectiveness of the Council of Europe’s technical assistance in the anti-corruption field in Armenia, taking into consideration recent changes in the law enforcement and judiciary systems in particular, namely the establishment of the new Anti-Corruption Committee and Anti-Corruption Courts. 

The Council of Europe, the European Union Delegation and the Armenian authorities expressed their mutual appreciation of this ongoing collaboration in the framework of the Partnership for Good Governance Programme, and renewed their joint commitment to continued efforts towards a stronger anti-corruption and anti-money laundering system in Armenia.   

This meeting was organised in the framework of the Project on “Strengthening institutional capacities to fight and prevent corruption in Armenia” which is funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe in their Partnership for Good Governance II.