According to former Vice Minister of Culture Karen Aristakesyan, in
the case of passing the proposed law entitled “About the import and
export of cultural values” Armenia will become a transitional country.
It will be easy to import and export different cultural values. Besides
that, there will be more cases of theft and it will be no longer
possible to follow the traces because nobody will be around to register
the cases in the state registration.
“With the passing of this bill, Armenia may turn into a transit
country. As a result, the illegal circulation of cultural values will
grow in Armenia. This will give foreign countries the opportunity to
import their cultural values in our country. There is no doubt about
that,” said Karen Aristakesyan during an interview with “168 hours”
weekly. The vice minister affirms that representatives of the
government are “trying to trick” Robert Kocharyan in convincing him
that the law will allow significant cultural values to make their way
to other countries, which is not the way it is in reality. “I think
that the authors of the law do not understand the meaning of setting
something free.The law is open to criticism because cultural
significance should not be the reason for adjusting the law. I think
that the people who have tricked the president should be held
accountable for that. This is a delusion and setting something free has
nothing to do with this,” he said. “The existing law had some flaws,
but at least it corresponded to international standards. With this law,
you can export, for example, major cultural values for 5,000 drams when
the real price is much more expensive. Exporting the cultural values
for 5,000 drams may lead to the rapture of the state treasury, poverty
in Armenia. This is unacceptable. According to the international
standards, the cultural values created in the Republic of Armenia are
considered the country’s property and if the state gives a category for
those values, then it has to deal with those values. However, this law
allows any object to be considered a cultural value and to be exported
without a certificate, certifying the right for export. This is already
a violation,” says K. Aristakesyan. Besides this, the former vice
minister affirms that some articles in the bill contradict one another
and create a deadlock. “Nothing can be said about this. With the
passing of this bill, you can export any cultural value from Armenia
for 5,000 drams. The state taxing is not included at all. In the past,
cultural values ranging from 1-50 years were taxed 5% of the price. It
was a right thing to levy state taxes for the cultural values because
then the treasury would not get old. All that needed to be done was to
not levy any tax on the objects of cultural value up to 50 years, as
for the rest of the values, there had to be a reduction of the
percentage of state tax. Besides this, with this law the customs tax
levied for importing cultural values is excluded. In other countries,
there is at least a 10% customs tax for all cultural values being
imported. There should be no tax for people who own cultural values,
but there needs to be one for imports of foreign cultural values. The
main issue for a country’s state politics should be the export of
private owned values instead of the import of foreign cultural values.
This is a matter of balancing,” affirms K. Aristakesyan.
K. Aristakesyan has worked on the law “About the export and import of
cultural values” during his entire time in office (1999-2003 December).
He has suggested on putting everything in order using the method of
going through stages. The authorities have not favored this and have
suggested using the packet version: “Nobody understood what was
suggested in my plan. In contrast to these new authors, I also know the
additional legislative acts of which they don’t have the slightest
idea. This bill is connected with the law entitled “About Museums and
Collections in the Museums”. It is absurd to talk about this law when
we have such a law as the one mentioned above. The authors of the law
have not understood the fact that the exclusive values that the state
registers are not subject to export. There are probably certain people
who are observing all that is going on and whose personal interest is
to see the passing of the bill. Otherwise, how can we explain exporting
any cultural value for 5000 drams. The state has to either register the
cultural value or permit the exportation. If it is registered, then it
is not subject to export,” says former vice minister and adds that we
can not misinterpret the most important law in the cultural arena
because some officials might lose their jobs. According to him, we need
to set regulations for the trade of ancient cultural values so that we
can differentiate the significant cultural values. However, this bill
is experimenting the licensing of the transferable cultural values
which, according to K. Aristakesyan, is ridiculous due to the fact that
the Republic of Armenia not only does not have such a structure or
laboratory, but also, it does not have the experts. “Who and what are
they going to license? That experiment is done quickly. No experiment
can take two days in any country, as stated in this bill. We do not
have the corresponding laboratories so it can go through technological
research. Who will decide whether it is a significant cultural value or
not? The authors have found themselves in a ridiculous situation,” said
K. Aristakesyan.
Minister of Culture Hovik Hoveyan believes that the bill proposed by
the government fully sets the exportation of cultural values free. “I
do not know what K. Aristakesyan has said, but this allows the
exporting to become legal,” said Hoveyan. As for the outlook for the
illegal circulation of Armenia’s cultural values, Hoveyan said: “I am
worried about that too. I also hope that we don’t become a transit road
for other countries. But with the passing of this bill, it becomes
easier to import and export cultural values. Cultural values existing
for 50-75 years can be exported by just the signature of one authority.
So, we are the ones who have unlocked the deadlock. As for the tax,
there will no longer be a tax. There was an additional tax or something
like that. Now, there will no more of that either. All the objects
considered to be cultural values will be exported for 4-5,000 drams,
whether you are exporting a musical instrument, or some precious object
of cultural value, or something from 50-70 years ago,” said H. Hoveyan
as he expressed his outlooks for the future.