YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) has become a full member of the Robert Schuman Institute, Armen Ashotyan – RPA Vice President, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on foreign affairs, told Armenpress.

“This Institute is an educational center of Christian-Democratic and Right-wing parties. It is also one of the biggest analytic centers of the European People’s Party. We are working with this Institute since 2012 and have actively taken part in their educational and analytical programs. Dozens of RPA members have underwent training within the frames of their educational programs, in Budapest, Strasbourg, Brussels and etc”, Ashotyan said.

He added that they attache a great importance to the full membership to the Robert Schuman Institute since it enables the party to further expand the international ties especially on political education and analytical directions.

The RPA Vice President noted that as a full member of the Institute they expect a close cooperation, joint seminars and lectures. “I want to state that the Republican Party of Armenia, as the first political force that established a political school in Armenia which is named after Andranik Margaryan, attaches a great importance to the role of the political education and analytical capacities in politics, thus, it will try to create an agenda for additional cooperation”, he said.

The Robert Schuman Institute is located in Budapest, but is a pan-European structure.

From its inception and through the whole course of its political life the Republican Party of Armenia has gradually developed tight relations with international political forces and political organizations. In this context the RPA assumed cooperation with the Communist Party of China and United Russia party. Over years on the collective initiative of the parties different political events including a number of visits and joint projects had been arranged aimed at boosting inter-party cooperation. International inter-party relations are also promoted on the parliamentary level, where in recent years RPA has been conducting an extremely productive cooperation with the EPP party. On February 9, 2012 the EPP political assembly held a session during which RPA received the status of EPP observer member.