TWO REALITIES OF ARMENIA. PART 2
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
April 17 2013
17 April 2013 – 8:26am
Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
See Part 1
The government and the prime minister don’t see alarming tendencies in
the growth of the country’s foreign debt, which is now $4 billion, or
in the fact that the Armenian economy is living off this foreign debt
and transfers from abroad of $1.8 billion. The government is calm
about the growth of poverty. According to the Ministry of Finance, the
poverty rate in 2012 was 33.1% of the whole population. For example,
in 2008 the poverty rate was 27.6%.
The most interesting thing is that, despite the economic growth, the
emigration rate is growing as well. According to official data,
economic growth in 2011 was 4.6%, while the number of Armenian
citizens who left the country forever was 43.8 thousand people. In
very successful 2012, when economic growth was registered at a level
of 7.2%, 42.8 thousand people left Armenia.
Recently, the international organization Gallup World published the
results of a public opinion survey in the post-Soviet countries,
devoted to migration issues. According to the survey, conducted in 12
countries among 41 thousand people, it appeared that in general 15% of
the post-Soviet population would like to live in different states.
Armenia is on top the list: 40% of residents of it would like to
emigrate, and the rate is much higher than in other countries. 21% of
Ukrainian citizens would like to leave it; 17% in Belarus, 14% in
Georgia and Azerbaijan. The main reason for emigration is economic
factors. According to surveys for internal use, which were conducted
in Armenia by the responsible structure of the European Union in
October-December 2012, if the EU border were to open a million people
are ready to leave Armenia – not only migrants, but also non-working
members of their families. Moreover, if in Russia Armenian migrants
come to work, in Europe they are ready to settle forever.
Probably this circumstance played an important role in the fact that
the EU postponed signing the Associative Agreement between Armenia and
the EU which had to take place in early 2014.
At the initiative of the EU and United Nations Children’s Fund, the
program “Social Reaction to Labour Migration in Armenia” is being
implemented. The goal of the program, which costs about 1 million
euros, is to reduce the number of labour migrants and reduce the
influence of social consequences of labour migration on families and
communities in Armenia. The EU’s concern is quite understandable.
However, the desire to leave Armenia is based on numerous
socio-economic problems which must be solved by the country’s
government rather than the EU’s program. If new jobs are created and
new enterprises are opened, the poverty rate will reduce and the
negative attitude among the population will change.
Today Armenia has two realities: the majority of the population, who
are dissatisfied with the socio-economic situation, and official data,
which states about successes in the economy. The government resembles
members of the Politburo of the CPSU from an old Soviet joke. When a
train of the future in which Brezhnev and his team are travelling
suddenly stops because there is no rail-track ahead, Brezhnev answers
a question about what they are going to do, saying: “We should pretend
that the train is moving and wave from windows.”
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