EuFoA in the Media

Frank Engel has asked the European Commission in a written question about the exclusion of Karabakhi students and teachers from education programmes sponsored by the European Union. Students from the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic cannot take part in these exchanges that are also available for the youth of any neighbour country, including the eastern Partnership area. Mr Engel wants to know exactly on what basis they are being excluded.

Ahead of the EURONEST Parliamentary Assembly to be held in Yerevan on 16-18 March, EuFoA Director Mr Eduardo Lorenzo Ochoa has been asked to write a column presenting EURONEST and Armenia's involvement within this Assembly.

The article entitled "Euronest, a Multilateral Dimension of Relations with Europe" was published by the monthly Armenian magazine of the Economics & Law Centre. The Centre began its activities with the publication of the magazine for managers and the specialists of organization management: accountants, lawyers, auditors, tax specialists, financiers, managers, marketing specialists and others.

Below we reprint the article with kind permission of the magazine.

On Monday, 3 February 2014 and Tuesday, 4 February 2014, EuFoA Director Eduardo Lorenzo Ochoa appeared as a guest lecturer at the University of Deusto International Business School. His Monday lecture was titled "Effectively communicating businesses' positions in the EU: an inter-institutional approach", while his Tuesday class focused on "Business opportunities in the EU Eastern Partnership: The case of Armenia." Both lessons were relevant for the programme's current module focusing on business opportunities in Europe.

On 9 October 2013, the London-based Foreign Policy Centre, together with EuFoA, organised a panel discussion on the current situation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, with the EUSR Ambassador Lefort as keynote speaker. The Armenian media reported about this event. Among others, Armnews put together a report and video broadcast during their evening news.

The approval by the French Senate of the law criminalising the denial of the Armenian Genocide was greeted with festivities in Armenia. In Yerevan a child was baptized Avetisian Sarkozy in honour of the French President. Referring to the ongoing debate around the French bill criminalising the denial of genocides, Sargis Ghazaryan, Senior Research Fellow at EuFoA is quoted in the article saying that "In the words of Nobel laureate and former deported to Auschwitz Elie Wiesel - the last act of every genocide is its denial". "So - continues Ghazaryan - the physical elimination is followed by the denial of memory, by deletion of the identity of the victims. To those who advocate freedom of expression to counter the criminalization of the denial of the genocide in France it is legitimate to ask whether the right of expression of a denialist overrides the right of the memory of the victims of genocide and their descendants". "Instead of sending threatening messages to France and blackmailing, Ankara would do better to confront its past, listening to the voices of its own civil society". [More in Italian]

This week Dr Sargis Ghazaryan, EuFoA Senior Research Fellow, gave an exclusive interview to an Armenian daily newspaper, CAPITAL Daily, regarding the European Parliament Resolution on the South Caucasus as well as on the prospects of Armenian foreign policy challenges.

On Tuesday, 13 October in Yerevan, EuFoA hosted a conference entitled "EU and NATO - how to secure stability for Armenia and the South Caucasus". The event was organized in the framework of NATO week in Armenia, and co-sponsored by NATO.

On Thursday 7 May 2009, the EU together with its Eastern neighbours officially launched the new and ambitious Eastern Partnership. This initiative will complement the existing European Neighbourhood Policy and allow countries like Armenia to co-operate more strongly with the EU.