PARTIES READY FOR COOPERATION
By Karine Mangassarian

Yerkir/arm
August 26, 2005

At the August 22 meeting between secretary of ARF’s parliamentary
faction Hrayr Karapetian and secretary of the British International
Association of Business and Parliament (IABP) Frederick Hyde Chambers
the latter pointed out that the British society is concerned that
any cooperation between the business and the parliament is corrupt.

Chambers noted that this concern was the reason why the IABP was
created. A similar concern exists in Armenia and the cooperation effort
launched today attempts at mitigating this concern. Chairman of the
NGO for Protection of Consumers Rights Abgar Yeghoyan and coordinator
of IABP’s Armenian branch Karen Sargsian attended the meeting. The IAP
delegation headed by Chambers first visited Armenia in March this year.

As Chambers noted at the meeting, he came to Armenia upon the
invitation of the National Assembly Vice Speaker Vahan Hovhannissian
to assess the possibility of introducing the business and parliament
model in Armenia, a model that would benefit the economy, ensure fair
competition and eliminate the possibility of misuse of legislative
power. Chambers had a meeting with the National Assembly Speaker.

The latter assured that Armenia is open to support any initiatives
aimed at facilitating transparent relations between the National
Assembly deputies and the businessmen. A series of meetings were
held with representatives of various organizations supporting the
development of SME’s.

Meetings were held with representatives of the Union of SME’s and
the Union of Traders as well as several international organizations
implementing projects on empowerment of the parliament and development
of small and medium businesses. At Karapetian’s request, Chambers
presented the activities of IABP.

“Our goal is to achieve mutual understanding, trust between the
non-corrupted entities, enhancement of constructive approaches
and transparent relations between the parliamentarians and
the businessmen,” Chambers noted adding that for this purpose
representatives of various political parties and businesses united in
1977 determined to create mechanisms that would ensure transparency
of all processes within the economy.

“These activities were not the result of lobbying from any
specific business since all strata were represented there”, Chambers
said. Similar approaches were used in Finland, France, Belgium, Spain,
Holland, Sweden, USA, Canada and New Zealand. Chambers noted that
among the post-Soviet countries only Georgia had introduced this model.

IABP’s national models initially designed as educational resources
for the parliaments involve various projects for representatives of
all business sectors and all political parties represented in the
parliament. IABP offers opportunities for international exchange of
parliamentarians and businessmen participating in the IABP national
models.

Karapetian who is also heading the parliament group for protection
of the consumers’ rights noted with appreciation Chambers’ proposal
for cooperation pointing our that a number of large businesses are
represented in the Armenian parliament and the opinion that the
relations between the parliament and the businesses are corrupt is
relevant for Armenia as well.

“Cooperation within the National Assembly is important in terms
of protection of small and medium businesses as well as protection
of the consumers’ rights. We have discussed these issues with the
representative of OSCE in Armenia and with representatives of various
NGO’s.

There is no need to invent a new bicycle – we are ready to cooperate
with interested international organizations and study the international
experience since the problems are similar,” Karapetian said presenting
the activities of the parliament group for protection of consumers’
rights in the sphere of food safety. Chambers agreed that problems are
similar everywhere assuring that IABP is ready to implement practical
projects and provide consulting and expertise.

“It is important that the entire business sector is involved in this
cooperation initiative from the very start. We are ready to cooperate
on issues related to food security since this is directly connected
to our activities,” Chambers said noting that his impression from
the meetings with the Armenian parliamentarians and businesses has
been that the cooperation will be a success.

Answering our question whether he believes that it is possible to
eliminate the opinion prevailing in the society that the relations
between the business sector and the parliament are corrupt Chambers
noted, “In all the countries, irrespective of whether or not the
relations between the parliament and the business sector are corrupt,
the public opinion holds that there is corruption.

Our national models can help in both cases – when the public opinion
holds that there is corruption and when there really is corruption in
the relations between the parliament and the business sector. Our
goal is to facilitate non-corrupt relations so that the public
opinion changes”.