The environmental issues gradually attain more attention from international structures. In particular, the European Union is conducting a serious policy in this direction not only within its boundaries but also with neighboring states.
Currently the sector of environment protection is considered one of the priorities of the EU general policy in parallel with other directions of integration. This means that the growing attention of the Europeans may become useful for Armenia as well, where the issues of environmental protection are kind of pushed backward. The specialists think that the EU-Armenia Partnership Agreement can maximally conduce to close cooperation between Armenia and the EU in the sector of environmental protection. According to Armenian ecologists, the action plans (in particular, nature protection and stable development components) are key tools for the resolution of the mentioned issues. However, the adoption of the program is one thing and its implementation another thing. “The main issue is that our agreements, conventions and laws have a character of imitation,” says the president of the “For the sake of Sustainable Development” NGO and the former minister of nature protection Karine Danielyan. The latter, by the way, edited and helped to evaluate the 2006-2008 EU-Armenia Action Program. Let us mention that except the 10th section the evaluation scores were quite high (see the table). And this has a quite unique explanation. And the authors of the evaluation have also mentioned this – “implementation crisis.” They are speaking about the fact that the promise never comes true. “When we were filling in this questionnaire for the first time we had quite high scores and a very good picture because the agreements were stamped and the convention was signed… But was this project implemented? Has there been anything good or bad done to the nature? There were almost no such questions in the questionnaire. When we altered the questionnaire a little bit the results were also changed. If they delved a little deeper the results would be different,” says Mrs. Danielyan. The imitational way of working and the crisis of implementation may be called the main obstacles, which didn’t enable to fully utilize all the opportunities created due to the EU-Armenia cooperation. “The Europeans wouldn’t even envision a scenario that it’s possible to conduct an absolute anti-ecological policy in urban development sector after signing the conventions. We instead of adapting to the climate change make sure that the temperature is higher in summer so that the desert would return to Yerevan. The whole Europe expanded the tram lines, Paris restored its trams and we did the other way around,” regrets Danielyan. Indeed, as the authors of the evaluation say, weak or sometimes successful initiatives were realized in the framework of the ENP. For example, in Armenia the main necessary strategic political documents are already adopted and the institutional support of the implementation of the European policy in our country is already provided. Armenia has signed and ratified most of the European conventions related to environmental protection. It has also elaborated and adopted the second national plan on nature protection and the RA legislation is quite appropriate with the European standards and principles. It was also positively assessed that Armenia is involved in a wide range of European processes, such as the Environment for Europe, Environment and Security, etc. We also partake in regional programs, bilateral programs with Iran and Georgia despite the existence of certain issues in this regard. “Our cooperation with Azerbaijan is quite difficult for us and with Turkey as well. On the NGO level we collaborate with Azerbaijan but this becomes quite difficult because they are persecuted for cooperating with us,” says Mrs. Danielyan. Moreover, if this issue has objective reasons then others don’t, such as nihilism and non-enforcement of laws. So we get to blame only ourselves. Among the drawbacks the authors of the evaluation mention that there is very little public interest in the processes and this intangible participation complicates the process as well. “The prime minister instructed the ministries to maximally cooperate with non-governmental organizations. We speak and they listen to us. But the problem is to what extent our initiatives are realized,” says Danielyan. Some people say that the problem is simply connected with Armenian mentality and that unlike the Europeans we are not demanding especially concerning the environmental issues. However, as a response to this allegation Danielyan reminds that prior to Karabakh movement in Armenia the ecological movement broke up. “No matter how surprising it would be the people’s movement was based on the ecological movement.
Summarized results of evaluation
* – For Armenia the given sector cannot be considered adequate because our country joined the conventions mentioned in the guidebook only after the adoption of the Action Plan, which wasn’t taken into account in the guidebook.
But then the war started; many social issues broke up… People preferred to focus more on social economic issues rather than ecological ones.” In the recent period she sees certain interest to environmental issues on part of the society. She says that people are calling, approaching her on the street and are asking questions. “But the problem is that nothing good can be expected from this wild market environment. We have a semi-feudal and capitalistic system formed in our country. It’s clear that there can be no democracy here and the ecological issues only have an imitative character. When feudalism dominates in all other sectors there can be no developed ecological strategy in this sector,” she says. By the way, in their conclusions the evaluators are advising the government: “To intensify the democratization process in the country generally and the democracy of environment protection specifically.” They have also signified the overcoming of the legal nihilism, increase of the regulatory role of the state, altering economic priorities from the mining sector to others. What is the point of all these programs if the programs remain on paper no matter what and positive changes are not taking place in the ecological sector? Haven’t they lost their meaning? “In any case, we should move in this direction. Indeed the issue is more thorough. It means that the system itself should gradually approach the modern capitalistic system and maybe by pushing it from the side it may move forward. And we can start from ecology,” says K. Danielyan.