While Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s delegation was visiting the Kingdom of Belgium the Armenian media outlets were mentioning that the Prime Minister is in Belgium to ask for money.
These allegations were neither denied nor confirmed. There was no concrete information even after his visit. But the speech of Sargsyan at the floor of the European Commission was nothing else but politely asking for money. And the next speech, which already took place at the government session, comes to prove that the Europeans most probably didn’t refuse to provide money. But let’s move on one by one. In Brussels the Prime Minister first presented his reiteration on why people organize coups. “What forces direct the unrest in the Middle East and Africa? The answer is simple. People wish changes,” he said. Armenia has chosen the European way of reforms and changes, however, according to the Prime Minister, “During the long rule of Ottoman Empire and Soviet Union has radically declined our social process. We are convinced that these meetings and the support we have from the European Parliament will give a new impetus to our program of reforms. First of all, I mean the package of economic and democratic reforms high on our agenda.” He also added, “In the modern world changes are taking place fast as never. That is the reason why Armenia should speed up the process of reforms and realization of institutional reformation. In addition to other forms of assistance, the European Commission provides consultancy to support economic reform in Armenia. In turn, Armenia should honor its commitments as our relations need further strengthening based on democratic reforms.” Let us try to understand what’s behind these thoughts. People in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere wish changes and thus mount coups. We, Armenians, also wish changes but without revolutionary means. Our problem is that we have a soviet mentality. So we should make the state institutes to work openly and transparently so that the society would start to trust them. It means that we have it all for development and improvements but the social behavior is marred and in order to do that we need the most important thing – money and as soon as possible. “We clearly perceive that the tardiness and delay of the conduct of reforms will majorly damage the credibility of the government. We can strengthen trust by undertaking efficient steps. I am sure the EU support is vital for Armenia in order to take brave steps in the mentioned directions. Among other questions this will allow us to manage the risks and provide macroeconomic stability. Dear colleagues, by wrapping up my speech I’d like to mention that the current situation requires radical change and bold initiatives. EU has an important role in maintaining sustainable peace and stability in the South Caucasus by supporting the reforms. In its turn Armenia has the need of the support of donors in order to fill in the gap between the values and reform capacity.” It turns out that in order to make the country decent country money is more important than the political will. If we review this “thesis” in the aspect of electoral processes, which the Prime Minister noted, do you think the conduct of normal elections is more expensive than falsifying those? Many people will agree that falsifying elections requires more money than the conduct of fair elections, offering bribes and bribing the elections commission members. Some people may say this is a different matter because the bribe-givers offer bribes from their own pockets. Then the second question pops out. How come they have so much money in their pockets? If we consider the fact that the falsifiers of elections are the authorities then where do the statesmen find and spend millions of dollars to offer bribes? Indeed, this money comes from the state budget. So we the Armenian citizens pay the government so that the latter would rig the elections. Then the very same government goes to the Europeans and asks money in order not to falsify elections. This is real absurdness. Indeed, money is important for having a decent country. In order to make the police officer not to take a bribe you have to be able to pay him appropriately. Same can be said about the judges and statesmen. But let us reiterate that there are many issues that can be solved without money. For example, during each rally of the opposition the police blocks all the routes to Yerevan from the marzes and thus violates the constitutional right of these citizens to move freely. Moreover, they do it without any meaning because the ones that really want to be at the rally they make it anyway. But as they say the “residue remains.” And a half-step of refusing such a behavior would make us a democratic country and this doesn’t require money. No matter what the Prime Minister once again signified the role of money in front of the Europeans. “The global crisis revealed that the key issues of the economy – insufficient diversification of the economy, unproductive governance system and unequal competition conditions. In addition, the economic crisis caused growth of poverty, increase of the foreign trade and inflation. All these factors declined our capacity of holding reforms.” It means, dear Europeans, we could conduct the reforms ourselves but the economic difficulties hindered our plans. There is one more circumstance that’s worth mentioning here. When you periodically ask for money from someone as a rule you have to say in a few words what have you done to the previously allotted money. “With the help of the EU we have already implemented a range of projects. In particular, we were able to establish a strong and independent Ombudsman’s institution. We have also established the Chamber of Attorneys, Judicial Academy as well as the School of Diplomats. We have invested the system of E-government, electronic management of the tax administration, which is a key tool of improving business environment and reducing corruption risks…” The institution of an independent Ombudsman’s institute already says a lot. Only this should have been enough for the Europeans not to give any money. To this they should have added the fact that the country, which doesn’t have money goes to Europe with a 30-member delegation. But as we mentioned the Europeans didn’t act greedily. Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan started yesterday’s session of the government by informing the cabinet of the visit of the Brussels visit. He, in particular, said that Armenia received full and complete support from all EU structures and assurances that the program of reforms underway in Armenia, will be fully supported, which will create serious possibilities to give impetus to new reforms in 2011. Tigran Sargsyan noted that a variety of tools is offered to Armenia, which means to stimulate the cooperation of all structures with relevant EU bodies, which, in turn, means that our ministers should be in direct relations with their EU partners.