The Armenian National Movement’s administrative staff was the first to react to the “so-called cheapening” of the gas price and publicized the following yesterday:
“The administrative staff is currently taking steps which may be of the public’s interest and crucial for national security but at the same time necessary in order to keep our political party’s power. Alienating the Hrazdan Electricity station’s 5th energy block to the Russians in exchange of lowering the gas price for Armenian consumers for the next 3 years is not fair from the political, economic and social perspectives,” states the announcement. “From the political perspective, giving away the entire country’s energetic resources to foreign state is nothing more than losing one of the bases of political independence. Russia is keeping its supremacy both strategically and in the energy sector. 80% of Armenia’s energy sector is already in the hands of Russians. With this transaction, that number will go up to 100. From the economic perspective, just like before with the “Property in exchange for debt” transaction, here too we are alienating state property at a price much lower than the original and we have no guarantee for working together in the future. Armenia will be able to pay the money for gas in 2-3 years after handing over the 5th energy block of the Hrazdan electricity station. From the social perspective, the administrative staff believes that the authorities should be ashamed of themselves for cheating the people by lowering the gas price based on national interests. They are not solving any social issue by doing that. In fact, the 248.8 million dollars received from the Hrazdan 5th energy block transaction will enter the incontrollable budget of the defense ministry. Basically, this humiliating transaction is after one thing: on the one hand, its aim is to alleviate the tension before the upcoming elections and on the other hand, accumulate enough money and not let the Armenian National Movement take part in the elections,” states the message.