Monday,
EU Envoy Responds To Criticism From Armenian PM
• Emil Danielyan
Armenia - Piotr Switalski, head of the EU Delegation in Armenia, speaks at an
event in Yerevan, 24 January 2018.
The European Union needs to hear “very concrete ideas” from the new Armenian
government before it can consider increasing economic assistance to Armenia,
the head of the EU Delegation in Yerevan, Piotr Switalski, said on Monday.
Responding to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s criticism of the EU voiced last
week, Switalski said the government has yet to come up with a set of specific
reform-oriented projects requiring EU funding.
“We would like to hear from the Armenian government concrete ideas,” he told a
news conference. “In what form, in what way can the European Union be helpful?
In some ministries we have already received some preliminary ideas. We would
like to have a comprehensive view. And when we have this view we will discuss
how we can help.”
“We, all the people working on Armenia, are waiting for the concrete ideas of
the Armenian side,” he said.
Pashinian hit out at the EU on Thursday after meeting the 28-nation bloc’s top
officials, including European Council President Donald Tusk, in Brussels. The
43-year-old premier complained that the EU has still not promised to increase
its assistance to Armenia despite voicing strong support for his government’s
stated reform agenda.
“Frankly, I made it clear to our partners that this is not quite understandable
and acceptable … We specifically expect more concrete and greater assistance,”
Pashinian told reporters.
“The EU’s policy [towards Armenia] is the same as it was three or four months
ago. I think that they should either tone down their enthusiastic statements
[of support for the new Armenian government] or substantially change that
policy,” he stated bluntly.
Belgium - Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, and Armenia's Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinian meet in Brussels,12 July, 2018.
Switalski countered that Pashinian himself has not signaled any major change in
Armenia’s policy towards the EU or a desire to sign new and more far-reaching
agreements with the EU. “If the Armenian side believes that these [existing
EU-Armenia] documents have to be augmented … we need concrete ideas [as to]
what they would like to change in our policy,” argued the envoy.
Ever since he swept to power in a wave of mass protests in May, Pashinian has
repeatedly ruled out a change of his country’s geopolitical orientation. He has
pledged to keep it primarily allied to Russia and make Russian-Armenian
relations even “more special.”
Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU’s foreign
policy chief, Federica Mogherini, reportedly praised the recent democratic
change of Armenia’s government when they held their first face-to-face talks
with Pashinian on July 11-12. A spokeswoman for Mogherini said she reiterated
that the EU stands ready to “provide concrete support to reforms” initiated by
Pashinian. That includes “technical and financial assistance,” she said.
The EU pledged last year to provide up to 160 million euros ($185 million) in
fresh aid to Armenia over the next three years in line with the Comprehensive
and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) signed with the previous Armenian
government.
Switalski emphasized the fact that the EU is already Armenia’s leading foreign
donor. “We provide more than 50 percent of all external assistance [to
Armenia,]” he said.
The diplomat announced in that context that a senior official from the European
Commission, the EU’s executive body, will visit Yerevan later this week to
discuss with Armenian leaders their “expectations and needs.” “This must be a
very concrete discussion,” he stressed. “Projects, timelines, budgets and so on
and so forth. When we have it on the table we can discuss it.”
Yerevan Council Fails To Elect New Mayor
• Narine Ghalechian
Armenia - A session of Yerevan's municipal council is boycotted by the vast
majority of its members, .
Paving the way for pre-term local elections, Yerevan’s municipal council failed
to elect a new mayor of the Armenian capital on Monday.
Only 5 of the 65 members of the council attended its special session which was
supposed to elect a replacement for former Mayor Taron Markarian. The vote was
boycotted by Markarian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) and the Yelk
alliance, of which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is a leader.
Markarian resigned on July 9 under pressure from Pashinian and his political
allies. The HHK decided not to nominate another mayoral candidate.
Under Armenian law, the city council’s failure to elect a new mayor within two
weeks would give the central government the right to disband the legislature
and hold snap elections in the capital. This is Yelk’s preferred scenario.
Speaking immediately after the council’s failure to make a quorum, a senior
Yelk councilman, Davit Khazhakian, said Yerevan residents must now be able to
elect a new municipal legislature that will in turn pick their next mayor. The
polls should be held in the first half of September at the latest, he said,
citing relevant legal provisions.
Markarian, 40, served as Yerevan mayor for nearly seven years.
Armenian Man Detained In Azerbaijan
• Sisak Gabrielian
Armenia - Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan at a news briefing
in Yerevan, 22 May 2018.
A resident of an Armenian border village was detained by Azerbaijani
authorities after crossing into Azerbaijan in unclear circumstances at the
weekend.
The Azerbaijani military claimed to have captured the 34-year-old Karen
Ghazarian while thwarting an Armenian incursion into Azerbaijani territory.
The Armenian Defense Ministry was quick to deny the alleged incursion attempt,
insisting that Karapetian is a civilian resident of Berdavan, a village in the
northern Tavush province located just a few kilometers from the Azerbaijani
border. It said he has a history of mental disease.
“He suffers from mental problems and because of that didn’t serve in the armed
forces of Armenia,” Tigran Balayan, the Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman,
insisted on Monday.
Berdavan’s mayor, Smbat Mughdusian, also said that Ghazarian lives in the local
community and suffers from mental disorders. Mughdusian said he went missing
shortly after midnight.
The mayor suggested that Ghazarian lost his way and accidentally crossed the
Armenian-Azerbaijani border. The man’s family house in the village is closest
to the frontier, he told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
According to Balayan, the Armenian authorities are now trying to help
repatriate Ghazarian, including through the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC). An ICRC spokesperson in Yerevan said its representatives in Baku
are already trying to visit him in custody.
Three Armenian nations are currently held captive in Azerbaijan, according to
the ICRC.
One of them, Zaven Karapetian, was captured in June 2014, with Baku similarly
claiming to have thwarted an Armenian incursion. Yerevan dismissed that version
of events, saying that Karapetian was a civilian resident in Vanadzor, an
Armenian city around 130 kilometers from the border section which he crossed
for still unknown reasons.
Three residents of other Tavush villages strayed into Azerbaijan in 2014. Two
of them were branded Armenian “saboteurs” by the authorities in Baku and died
shortly afterwards.
Karen Petrosian, a 33-year-old resident of Chinari village, was pronounced dead
in August 2014 one day after being detained in an Azerbaijani village across
the border. The Azerbaijani military claimed that he died of “acute heart
failure.” Many in Armenia believe, however, that Petrosian was murdered or
beaten to death. The United States and France expressed serious concern at
Petrosian’s suspicious death at the time.
A 77-year-old resident of another Tavush village, Verin Karmiraghbyur, died in
May 2014 three months after being apprehended on the Azerbaijani side of the
frontier in similar circumstances. Doctors in Yerevan said the man, Mamikon
Khojoyan, suffered serious injuries during his month-long captivity.
Another Armenian civilian died in Azerbaijani custody in 2010. The 20-year-old
Manvel Saribekian, whose Tutujur village is also very close to the Azerbaijani
border, was paraded on Azerbaijani television following his capture. Saribekian
was found hanged in an Azerbaijani detention center shortly afterwards.
Tax Chief Vows Continued Fight Against Informal Economy
• Harry Tamrazian
Armenia - Davit Ananian, head of the State Revenue Committee, arrives for a
news conference in Yerevan, 13 July 2018.
Tackling the sizable informal sector of Armenia’s economy is a top priority for
tax authorities, the head of the State Revenue Committee (SRC), Davit Ananian,
said over the weekend.
Ananian said he has decided to set up a task force that will strive to measure
the precise scale of tax evasion in various sectors of the economy. He admitted
that the SRC currently lacks full information about it.
“If we don’t have estimates of the informal sector we won’t be able to say with
which instruments we should be combatting it and whether that fight can be
deemed effective,” Ananian told RFE/RL’s Armenian service (Azatutyun.am).
“For the first time we are setting up a working group in order to gauge that
grey economy,” he said. “This will be the cornerstone of the SRC’s activities.”
Ananian promised a tougher crackdown on companies and individuals
underreporting their earnings when he was appointed as head of the SRC in late
May. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said last week that the tax and customs
service has since recovered more than 20 billion drams ($42 million) of unpaid
taxes. The sum was collected from 73 companies, according to the SRC.
“The number of such firms is going up by the day and so is the figure cited by
the prime minister,” said Ananian. He insisted that the main purpose of these
fines is not to boost the government’s tax revenues but to make businesses
“change their behavior.”
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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