YEREVAN.— The agreement on readmission and facilitation of visa regime are interconnected documents, and these agreements between the EU and Armenia imply that the country committed itself to implement political and legal reforms, representative of Armenia’s migration service said.

“On the one side the Armenian nationals get an opportunity to visit EU for different purposes. On the other the agreement on readmission supposes regulation of procedures for confirming the identity of foreign citizens and their readmission to their homeland. Readmission is an alternative to deportation and allows you to return citizens to their homeland without further legal consequences. It should be borne in mind that the facilitation of the visa regime does not apply to citizens who are striving to work in the EU,” Haykanush Chobanyan, expert from foreign communication department at the State Migration Service, told reporters.

According to her, international experience, including negative experience, cannot serve as a clear basis for whether Armenia should strive for an agreement on a visa-free regime with the EU, as such is signed with a specific state, taking into account its peculiarities.

“The number of requests for readmission over the past five years has increased to 2,200, of which over 1.2 thousand in 2018 alone. 86% increase in the number of positive responses from Germany. However, due to the fact that citizens do not seek to register after arriving in Armenia, we cannot trace the number of citizens who actually returned,” she explained.