Friday, July 9, 2021
Armenia To Buy American COVID-19 Vaccines
• Narine Ghalechian
U.S. - Vials of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine sit in the pharmacy of
National Jewish Hospital for distribution on March 6, 2021, in Denver.
Armenia will buy soon the first batches of coronavirus vaccines developed by
U.S. pharmaceutical companies, Health Minister Anahit Avanesian said on Friday.
Avanesian told reporters that the country will receive this fall 50,000 doses of
Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine and 300,000 doses of the Novavax jab.
She said the Armenian government is also planning to purchase the
Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine through the World Health Organization’s global
COVAX Facility. The government has not done that so far because of a lack of
ultra-cold freezers needed for storing the vaccine, she said.
Armenian health authorities are currently using only vaccines developed by
Russia, China as well as Oxford University and the Anglo-Swedish company Astra
Zeneca in their immunization campaign launched in mid-April. According to
Avanesian, only 103,317 vaccine shots were administered in the country of about
3 million as of Friday morning.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met with the health minister and other senior
officials on June 30 to discuss ways of addressing a lack of popular interest in
COVID-19 vaccinations. He said relevant government agencies must do more to
encourage people to get vaccinated.
Armenia - Health Minister Anahit Avanesian is vaccinated against COVID-19 at a
medical center in Yerevan, April 28, 2021.
The vaccination process appears to have gained momentum in the last few days not
least because of an apparent influx of people from neighboring Iran keen to get
free shots offered to not only Armenians but also foreign nationals visiting the
country. Long lines formed outside policlinics and other vaccination centers
across Yerevan earlier this week.
This prompted the Armenian Ministry of Health to restrict on Thursday
non-resident foreigners’ access to those facilities. From now on foreigners who
do not have Armenian residency permits or arrived in the country less than ten
days ago can get vaccinated only at mobile sites set up in shopping malls and
several major streets in downtown Yerevan.
Hundreds of mostly young Iranians continued to queue up outside one such outdoor
facility on Friday. Some of them told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that getting
vaccinated against COVID-19 is much easier in Armenia than in Iran where
priority is given to elderly people and younger citizens have to wait for
inoculation for weeks.
Another Iranian, a young woman, said she travelled to Armenia because “we don’t
have good vaccines in our country.”
EU Plans Large-Scale Aid, Investments For Armenia
• Satenik Hayrapetian
Armenia - EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi at a
news conference in Yerevan, July 9, 2021.
The European Union pledged on Friday to provide Armenia with up to 2.6 billion
euros ($3.1 billion) in economic assistance and investments over the next five
years.
EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi discussed with
Armenian leaders the planned sharp increase in EU aid while visiting Yerevan on
the final leg of his tour of the three South Caucasus states.
The sum cited by Varhelyi is part of an “economic and investment plan” drafted
by the European Commission for six ex-Soviet republics involved in the EU’s
Eastern Partnership program. The EU’s executive body said last week that it has
asked the bloc’s 27 member states to approve the plan, potentially worth 17
billion euros in “public and private investments,” at an Eastern Partnership
summit slated for December.
The commission is specifically seeking 1.6 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in EU
grants, loans and loan guarantees for five “flagship initiatives” drawn up by it
for Armenia. That includes up to 500 million euros in funding for some 30,000
small and medium-sized enterprises and 600 million euros worth of capital
investments in the country’s transport infrastructure.
Varhelyi announced that the EU will also raise “together with our international
partners” an additional 1 billion euros for Armenia. He did not specify what the
extra funding will be spent on.
“We are ready to contribute in a very significant and operative way to the
economic recovery of Armenia together with the entire Eastern Partnership
region,” he said after talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Deputy
Prime Minister Mher Grigorian. “We have been working on a plan, together with
the government of Armenia, that should bring growth and jobs.”
“We will allocate 1.6 billion euros for these flagship initiatives, and
altogether we are able to mobilize 2.6 billion euros under this plan,” he told a
joint news conference with Grigorian.
The EU official said the large-scale aid and investments will significantly
speed up economic growth in the country.
Pashinian hailed the promised aid package, telling Varhelyi that he regards it
as a “reaction to irreversible democratic processes taking place in Armenia.” He
singled out the June 20 parliamentary elections described by European observers
as “competitive and generally well-managed.”
Varhelyi also praised the Armenian authorities’ handling of the snap elections
which were called to end a serious political crisis resulting from last year’s
war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I do hope that we will soon have a strong government, a strong parliament and a
strong parliamentary majority in Armenia because we have a lot to do,” he said.
Pashinian and Varhelyi also discussed the aftermath of the six-week war stopped
by a Russian-brokered ceasefire in November.
“I want to confirm that the EU is ready and committed to take on a very active
role on in the post-hostilities situation both as a facilitator of
confidence-building measures … and later on as a key partner in the economic
recovery,” Varhelyi told journalists.
Constitutional Court Opens Hearings On Election Appeals
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Armenia’s Constitutional Court opens hearings on opposition demands to
overturn official results of the June 20 parliamentary elections, Yerevan, July
20, 2021.
Armenia’s Constitutional Court began on Friday public hearings on opposition
demands to overturn official results of last month’s parliamentary elections
which gave victory to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s party.
The court received last week separate appeals from the opposition alliances led
by former Presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian and two smaller groups
that failed to win any seats in the Armenian parliament. They claimed to have
submitted evidence of irregularities which seriously affected the outcome of the
June 20 elections.
Pashinian and his political allies maintain that the vote was free and fair.
They point to its largely positive assessment by European election observers.
The opposition forces appealed to the Constitutional Court after the Central
Election Commission (CEC) refused to annul the vote results, saying that they
have not substantiated their allegations of widespread fraud.
The court will question representatives of the CEC as well as the Armenian
police and prosecutors during the hearings. It has agreed to allow Pashinian’s
Civil Contract party to participate in the hearings as a “third party.”
Armenia - Voters at a polling station in Yerevan, June 20, 2021.
At the start of the proceedings two opposition plaintiffs demanded that one of
the court’s nine judges, Vahe Grigorian, recuse himself from the case. Ara
Zohrabian of the Zartonk (Awakening) party argued that Grigorian has represented
Pashinian in Armenian and European courts in the past.
A representative of the main opposition Hayastan alliance led by former
President Robert Kocharian claimed that Grigorian cannot make impartial
decisions because of having represented relatives of protesters killed during
Kocharian’s rule in a high-profile trial of the ex-president.
The court rejected those demands, saying that it has already discussed the
matter and found no conflict of interest in Grigorian’s involvement in the
consideration of the opposition appeals.
Grigorian said, for his part, that he is ready to “present my explanations
regarding that.” He hinted that similar questions could be raised about the
impartiality of Hrayr Tovmasian, another Constitutional Court member who used to
be affiliated with Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).
The HHK and another opposition party now make up the Pativ Unem alliance, one of
the four groups challenging the official vote results.
Grigorian and three other Constitutional Court judges were installed by
Armenia’s outgoing parliament controlled by Pashinian.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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