YEREVAN, JUNE 9, NOYAN TAPAN. The European Commission has disbursed the first instalment of a 16 million package to fight unemployment, especially among the young workforce, through reforms of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. The funds are part of the European Commission's 2007 Annual Action Programme for Armenia, endowed with a total of 21 million assistance funds. The programme as a whole aims at improving the VET institutions as well as the cooperation between employment and education sectors, and at enhancing the business climate for boosting job-creation. This first transfer was made on June 5, 2008. Two further instalments are foreseen until 2010. In the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), Armenia and the European Commission have agreed to focus assistance of the European Union to Armenia allocated in 2007 on further reforms of the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector, building on extensive experience and lessons learned from previous TACIS and other EU funded projects. EU assistance to VET reforms in Armenia for 2008 will be delivered through large scale Budget Support of 15 mln EUR, completed by a 1 mln EUR project of technical assistance, i.e. 16 mln EUR in total. As Noyan Tapan was informed by the Armenian delegation of the European Commossion, in the period 1992-2006 the European Commission has provided more than 400 million euro in grants to Armenia through a wide range of instruments, the most important ones being TACIS, ECHO, Food Security Programme (FSP), European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA). More particularly, since 1999, the EU has spent over 25 mln EUR to development of the Education sector in Armenia, through support to VET reforms and TEMPUS programme.

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