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The National Assembly of Hungary has ratified the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA), Panorama.am learnt from the official website of the Hungarian parliament.

According to the message, the MPs discussed the matter on the March 19 sitting that was subsequently backed by 169 in favor votes. The Speaker of the parliament approved the decision on March 24 and the country’s president János Áder ratified it on March 26.

Hungary’s ratification of CEPA was a topic of concern in political circles in the light of  diplomatic rift when Armenia severed relations with Hungary following the extradition of Ramil Safarov – convicted of murdering Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan in Hungary in 2004 – to Azerbaijan in exchange for a $7 million dollar bribe.

Safarov was pardoned upon returning to Azerbaijan. Relatives of the murdered officer sued Hungary and Azerbaijan for violating Articles 2 (right to life) and 14 (prohibition against discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Hungary’s decision to extradite Safarov was widely slammed by international community.

To add the European Council website however has not updated the list of countries that have ratified CEPA to include Hungary and Finland that ratified CEPA days ago. 

The EU and Armenia signed the new deal on the sidelines of the EU Eastern Partnership Summit in November 2017. The agreement was provisionally applied on June 1 in the following year. Thus far the Agreement has fully been ratified by the UK, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania Luxemburg, Latvia, Malta, Romania, Germany and Poland.