Tuesday, September 3, 2017 Meat, Butter Prices Soar In Armenia . Anush Mkrtchian Armenia - Meat sold in a food market in Yerevan, 3Oct2017. Retail prices of meat and butter in Armenia have risen by more than 20 percent in the last ten days, making these foodstuffs even less affordable for a large part of the country's population. Particularly drastic has been a surge in the price of pork. It stood at roughly 2,600 drams ($5.4) in grocery stores and markets in Yerevan on Tuesday, up from 1,600-1,800 drams in August. Beef and lamb prices soared by 20-30 percent to 2,100 and 2,200 drams per kilogram respectively. Butter, which is mostly imported to Armenia from New Zealand and other countries, was sold for about 4,000 drams per kilo, up from 2,800 drams less than two weeks ago. Traders in a Yerevan food market, where prices are lower than in supermarkets and smaller stores, said their sales have fallen significantly because of the price hikes. "We are embarrassed to tell the price to pensioners," one butter trader told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am). "Butter is now more expensive than meat," complained his wife. Armenia's state anti-trust regulator, the State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition (SCPEC), blamed the increased cost of butter on external factors. "Butter prices have risen in virtually all countries of the world," said Gnel Alaverdian, head of the SCPEC's analytical department. "According to the main companies exporting butter from New Zealand, international butter prices rose by over 130 percent between May 2016 and September 2017." he added. "This is an unprecedented price hike. In the same period, retail prices of butter in our country rose by only 44-50 percent." Armenia is far less dependent on imports of meat. The SCPEC could not explain the sharp rise in the prices of this foodstuff, saying that it is not monitoring the domestic meat market. According to the National Statistical Service (NSS), year-on-year consumer price inflation in the country averaged less than 1 percent in January-August 2017. Opposition Bloc Insists On Armenia's Exit From Eurasian Union . Tatevik Lazarian Armenia - Nikol Pashinian (L) and other deputies from the opposition Yelk alliance attend a parliament session in Yerevan, 3Oct2017. The opposition Yelk alliance forced the Armenian parliament on Tuesday to debate its calls for Armenia to leave the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) which are opposed by the three other political groups represented in the National Assembly. The 90-minute debate came just days after the parliament committee on foreign relations rejected a Yelk proposal to set up an ad hoc commission that would look into consequences of the country's membership in the Russian-led bloc. The pro-Western bloc responded by taking the matter to the parliament floor. Earlier in September Yelk drafted a parliamentary declaration saying that the Armenian authorities must embark on a "process" of invalidating their accession treaty with the EEU. It said that EEU membership, effective from January 2015, has hurt the country's economy and security. Yelk's leaders decided to postpone parliamentary discussions on the document for now and focus instead on the idea of the special commission. One of them, Nikol Pashinian, said during Tuesday's debate that the proposed parliamentary inquiry is aimed at "protecting Armenia's sovereignty" which has been dealt "very serious blows" by the EEU. Armenia must not only leave the EEU but also seek an Association Agreement with the European Union, he said. Parliamentary leaders of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) again dismissed the initiative. One of them, deputy speaker Eduard Sharmazanov, insisted that most Armenian parties and ordinary citizens oppose an exit from the EEU. "This is one of the few issues on which both the authorities and the majority of the opposition agree," Sharmazanov told fellow lawmakers. "Secondly # what we should discuss first is not the question of what the EEU has given us but the damage that would occur in case of our exit." Another senior HHK figure, Armen Ashotian, said that it is the Armenian government, rather than the EEU, that is primarily responsible for the country's economic woes. "Why aren't you demanding the government's resignation and are seeking an exit from the EEU instead?" he said. Representatives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), the HHK's junior coalition partner, and businessman Gagik Tsarukian's bloc, which claims to be in opposition to the government, also made clear that they will vote against the Yelk motion. Yelk holds 9 seats in the 105-member parliament. Armenian Businessman Sentenced For Fraud . Ruzanna Gishian Armenia - Businessman Ashot Sukiasian stands trial in Yerevan, 5May2016. An Armenian businessman has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for defrauding another entrepreneur who has implicated former Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian in the high-profile case. A district court in Yerevan convicted Ashot Sukiasian late on Monday of having misappropriated most of a $10.7 million loan which his former business partner, Paylak Hayrapetian, borrowed from an Armenian commercial bank in 2012. Sukiasian had pledged to invest that money in diamond mining in Sierra Leone. He never did that, according to prosecutors. Sukiasian was arrested in Georgia, extradited to Armenia and charged with fraud, money laundering and tax evasion in 2014. The Armenian police issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2013 after a series of reports published by Hetq.am. The investigative publication discovered that Hayrapetian's money was transferred to the offshore bank accounts of several Cyprus-registered companies. It disclosed a document purportedly certifying that one of those firms is co-owned by Sukiasian, then Prime Minister Sarkisian and Archbishop Navasard Kchoyan of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Both Sarkisian, who resigned as prime minister in April 2014, and Kchoyan strongly denied having any stakes in the company, saying that it was registered in their names in Cyprus without their knowledge. Sukiasian claimed to have forged their signatures shortly after his arrest. Hayrapetian, a formerly wealthy man now living in a modest Yerevan apartment, continued to implicate Sarkisian in the alleged scam, however. The former premier, who now heads the Moscow-based executive body of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, filed a libel suit against him in 2015. During his trial, Sukiasian denied not only the ex-premier's and Archbishop Kchoyan's links to the offshore firm but also the charges levelled against him. His lawyer, Yuri Khachatrian, told RFE/RL's Armenian service (Azatutyun.am) that he will appeal against the verdict. Khachatrian said earlier that Sukiasian himself is a victim of fraud. He claimed that his client lost control over a diamond mine in Sierra Leone because he was cheated by a Belarusian partner. The lawyer also dismissed Hayrapetian's complaints, saying that the latter was always aware that doing business in the war-ravaged African state is very risky. In addition to the lengthy prison sentence, a district court in Yerevan also ordered the arrested businessman to pay Hayrapetian almost 9 billion drams ($19 million) in damages. Press Review "Zhamanak" disagrees with assertions that recent independence referendums in Iraqi Kurdistan, Spain's Catalonia region and other parts of the world bode well for a pro-Armenian solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan cannot be a precedent for Karabakh," the paper says. "Neither can, from the Azerbaijani perspective, Crimea, Abkhazia or South Ossetia, which are cases rejected by the international community. We won't discuss motives and evaluations. At any rate, they are extremely subjective." "Our strength probably lies in the notion that [ethnic] conflicts around the world are not identical and therefore cannot serve as an example to each other," continues "Zhamanak." "That approach ensures a much less vulnerable and a much easier, in terms of room for foreign policy maneuver, situation for Armenia because Armenia does not have to side any parties to other conflicts." "Zhoghovurd" claims that the Armenian authorities expect to receive large-scale economic assistance from the European Union after signing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU in November. "For that purpose they have started flattering European officials, expressing their gratitude for the assistance provided to date. That assistance includes cooperation with the EU during the [April 2017 Armenian] parliamentary elections # The authorities are used to asking for money for the implementation of one or another program but that funding does not always serve its purpose. And when donors demand reports on the use of their money the authorities immediately go on a counteroffensive." "Haykakan Zhamanak" says that socioeconomic factors are the main reason for a continuing out-migration of people from Armenia. "In essence, the key to Armenia's development lies in cutting off the direct link between [migrant] remittances, economic growth and out-migration," writes the paper. "All we have to do is to ensure a qualitative change in the economy. That in turns means radical reforms of management of the economy, a de-monopolization [of the economy,] a separation of business and politics, a reduction in the scale of corruption, and greater efficiency of the judicial system." (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2017 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org