Armenia fulfilled binding obligations arising from Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) membership.

It was stated in The EU's Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP) comprehensive 2014-2015 report today.

According to the report, Armenia demonstrated genuine efforts to comply with its commitments towards GSP+ during the first phase of monitoring.

“At the same time, Armenia has to continue and in some cases step up its work to further improve its implementation of the conventions - not least striving to ensure that Armenian citizens experience human rights protection improvements in their everyday life - in order to keep the GSP+ benefits”, the report says.

The EU's Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP) is designed to help partner countries develop their economies through benefitting from international trade. It grants reduced or zero tariffs on imports to the EU, making access to EU markets easier.

“In 2014-2015, Armenia made an overall effort to address the shortcomings identified in its implementation of the conventions, primarily related to missing or inadequate legislation and awareness rising. At the same time, Armenian government needs to further step up its efforts to effectively address several persisting human rights problems, in particular regarding the independence and integrity of the judiciary and of the political system as a whole, the insufficient legislative and enforcement framework against torture and ill treatment, widespread corruption, discrimination against minorities, discrimination and violence against women and child poverty”, the report reads.

The next report on Armenia's compliance with its GSP+ commitments will be published by November 2017.