Wednesday, January 26, 2022
Ethics Inquiry Sought Against Pro-Government Lawmaker
January 26, 2022
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Vahagn Aleksanian, a parliament deputy from the ruling Civil Contract
party, at a news briefing in Yerevan, October 8, 2021.
The opposition Pativ Unem bloc said on Wednesday that it will demand a
parliamentary ethics inquiry into a pro-government lawmaker who branded
journalists critical of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian as “prostitutes.”
The controversial lawmaker, Vahagn Aleksanian, lashed out at Armenian TV
channels in a speech delivered on the parliament floor last week. He claimed
that almost all of them have been disseminating “hate speech” against Pashinian
and his family members since Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan.
“They are not journalists, they are verbal prostitutes,” Aleksanian said,
drawing strong condemnation from opposition lawmakers and Armenia’s leading
press freedom groups.
More than a dozen such organizations issued a joint statement last Friday
demanding that the ruling Civil Contract party public denounce Aleksanian’s
insults. They warned that failure to do so would mean that Pashinian’s political
team approves and encourages such rhetoric.
Pashinian, who himself is a former journalist and newspaper editor, defended on
Monday his loyalist’s scandalous comments.
“If I was still a journalist … and first and foremost honesty served my
profession, I would not attribute those comments to myself,” he told Armenian
state television.
The media associations also called on the Armenian parliament to form an ad hoc
ethics commission that would investigate and evaluate Aleksanian’s conduct.
Pativ Unem’s Taguhi Tovmasian, who chairs the parliament’s standing committee on
human rights, said that her opposition bloc will propose a relevant decision to
the National Assembly in the coming days.
The decision must be backed by the parliament majority representing Civil
Contract. Lawmakers from Pashinian’s party declined to comment on the opposition
initiative.
Pointing to Pashinian’s remarks, Tovmasian suggested that Civil Contract is
unlikely to agree to the ethics inquiry. “But we should try,” she said.
“After Pashinian’s words, I can say for certain that the ruling force will not
agree to set up the ethics commission,” said Gegham Manukian of the opposition
Hayastan alliance.
In the course of last year Armenian media watchdogs repeatedly accused
Pashinian’s administration of seeking to curb press freedom in the country. In
particular, they denounced government-backed bills that tripled maximum legal
fines for “slander” and made it a crime to gravely insult state officials and
public figures.
EU Envoy Hails Pashinian’s ‘Positive’ Comments On Azerbaijan
January 26, 2022
• Siranuysh Gevorgian
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian meets the representative of the French
Presidency to the Council of the European Union, Isabelle Dumont, and the EU's
special representative to the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar, January 21, 2022.
A senior European Union diplomat on Wednesday praised Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian for sticking to conciliatory rhetoric and stressing the importance of
normalizing Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan.
Toivo Klaar, the EU’s special representative for the South Caucasus, reacted to
Pashinian’s televised interview aired on Monday.
“I was pleased to see several positive and forward-looking remarks in the
interview given by Prime Minister Pashinian on January 24, 2022, in particular
on his vision for the future of the region, normalization of relations between
neighbors and conflict-related rhetoric of the 1990s,” Klaar told RFE/RL’s
Armenian Service.
“A lot more needs to be done by the sides when it comes to dealing with the past
and the legacy of conflict,” he said in written comments. “This is indeed a long
but certainly a crucial process that needs to involve the societies on both
sides.”
In his interview, Pashinian avoided condemning Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev’s bellicose statements directed at Armenia and claims that Azerbaijan’s
victory in the 2020 war put an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and that
Yerevan and other parts of the country are “historical Azerbaijani lands.”
Pashinian drew parallels between Aliyev’s aggressive rhetoric and statements
made by politicians in Armenia and Karabakh after the Armenian victory in the
first Karabakh war.
“Statements frequently voiced from Azerbaijan mirror statements that were made
in Armenia after 1994 … Those statements [by Aliyev] contain a certain element
of revenge and we must take this into account,” he said.
Pashinian also reaffirmed strong support for opening transport links between
Armenia and Azerbaijan. They will contribute to regional peace and earn Armenia
economic benefits, he said.
Klaar and a senior French diplomat visited Baku and Yerevan last week to discuss
with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders ongoing efforts to de-escalate
tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The EU envoy reiterated on Wednesday that he is satisfied with the results of
the talks. But he did not go into details.
“Our discussions last week were positive and we are looking forward to
continuing our engagement with the sides to help them build a safe, stable and
prosperous South Caucasus,” he said.
Armenian Government Downplays Gas Price Hike
January 26, 2022
• Robert Zargarian
Armenia -- A gas distribution facility.
The Armenian government has sought to justify a widely anticipated increase in
the retail prices of natural gas in the country.
The government said on Wednesday that the prices should not go up again for the
next ten years if they are raised soon by public utility regulators.
The Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) signaled a price rise before it
was formally requested this month by Armenia’s Russian-owned gas distribution
network. The PSRC said that gas mostly imported from Russia could become more
expensive for Armenian households on April 1.
In a December statement, the PSRC cited the need to repay $270 million in loans
used for the recently completed modernization of the Metsamor nuclear plant. It
also pointed to Armenia’s contractual obligation to enable Gazprom to recoup
investments made in a large thermal-power plant located in the central town of
Hrazdan.
The regulatory body revealed that the Armenian and Russian governments have
reached an agreement that commits Yerevan to providing the Hrazdan plant with
$31.8 million annually for the next ten years.
Armenia - The Public Services Regulatory Commission meets in Yerevan. November
20, 2019.
In written comments sent to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, the government said that
the deal -- and the promised subsidy in particular -- will become null and void
if the Gazprom Armenia operator or its parent company seeks further price hikes
by 2032.
The PSRC already raised the prices of electricity and drinking water last month
following a highest inflation in many years recorded in the country. Analysts
say that the upcoming gas price hike will further increase the cost of living
and hit vulnerable groups of the population especially hard.
In its latest application to the PSRC, Gazprom Armenia requested, among other
things, an end to a more than 30 percent price discount enjoyed by low-income
families. Government officials have promised, however, that the preferential
tariff for the poor will remain the same.
Babken Pipoyan, who leads a consumer rights group, argued that even if the
authorities honor that pledge they cannot prevent knock-on effects on the cost
of other essential products.
“You can’t raise the gas price for bread producers and expect the prices of
bread to stay unchanged,” he said. “You can’t raise the gas price for greenhouse
owners and expect no impact on the prices of agricultural products.”
International gas prices have skyrocketed over the past year. They are now much
higher than Russia’s existing wholesale tariff for Armenia set at $165 per
thousand cubic meters.
Pashinian Again Infected With Coronavirus
January 26, 2022
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is vaccinated against the coronavirus,
Yerevan, May 3, 2021.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has tested positive for the coronavirus for the
second time in 20 months, his office said on Wednesday.
The office said that Pashinian has gone into self-isolation and is not showing
any symptoms of COVID-19. He will therefore work from home for now, it added in
a statement.
Pashinian and members of his family were already infected with the coronavirus
in June 2020. He announced their recovery from the disease a week later. During
that weeklong self-isolation, Pashinian held daily news briefings with other
officials outside his residence.
The prime minister claimed to have again gone into coronavirus-related
self-isolation in January last year when he commented through a spokeswoman on
his failure to attend an Armenian Christmas mass in Yerevan.
It was not clear whether he took a coronavirus test at the time. Pashinian, his
wife and elder children were vaccinated against COVID-19 later in 2021.
Pashinian’s latest positive test result was announced amid an upsurge in
coronavirus cases blamed by Armenian officials on the Omicron variant of the
virus.
Armenia - Pedestrians wear mandatory face masks in Yerevan, November 2, 2021.
The Ministry of Health said on Wednesday that 1,931 new cases were registered in
the country of about 3 million in the past 24 hours. It reported only 100-150
cases a day in late December and early this month.
The ministry hopes to contain the latest wave of COVID-19 infections by stepping
up its vaccination campaign. Less than a third of Armenia’s population has been
fully vaccinated so far.
The Armenian government introduced on January 22 a mandatory coronavirus health
pass for entry to cultural and leisure venues. Only those people who have been
inoculated against COVID-19 or have had a recent negative test are now allowed
to visit them.
Entities failing to ensure their visitors’ compliance with the requirement risk
initial fines ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 drams ($210-$630).
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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