President Serzh Sargsyan has signed an order to establish a Council for Controlling and Coordinating the Economic Sector and Raising Effectiveness of State Regulation of Economic Policies.
According to the official information, this council has been established for the purpose of eliminating provisions that are obstacle for the development of the business environment and market economy, improving services on part of the state, improving legislation in this sector, as well as cutting down procedures that are not cost-effective. The president has also confirmed the list of the council members, which is headed by the prime-minister. The sectors subject to this work are also confirmed by the president. The government has instructed to confirm the charter of the council within a month and the policies and procedures for improving and adopting the policy for regulating and developing the sector of economy. However, there are a number of questions to address. First, what does it mean to “improve the state services and legislation”? If they are asking such question, it means that the state services are not effective at all. In good countries in such situations the authorities do not establish a new council but punishes those who cannot implement a good policy or at least tries to change something. In Armenia the government is in charge of the economic regulation with separate ministries for every sector. In fact this order means that first of all the government does not work effectively, and, second, an institution is established to eliminate the shortcomings of the same government, the head of which is the head of the same council. Also, it is written that the council shall work to reform the legislation, which means that the council shall undertake a role, which is the exclusive right and responsibility of the parliament according to the Constitution. The most amazing thing is that the council will be headed by the prime-minister, whose reforms have failed during the past three years. In a word, with this order they in fact confess that on the one hand the government does not work effectively, and on the other hand the parliament cannot fulfill its functions in a duly manner. We believe that this is a stronger argument for demanding by-elections that the arguments brought by the ANC so far.