Friday, Pashinian Demands Faster Tax Reforms • Emil Danielyan Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (C), the newly appointed chief of the State Revenue Committee, Davit Ananian (L), and his predecessor Vartan Haritunian meet senior SRC officials, Yerevan, . Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian demanded a more radical improvement of tax administration in Armenia on Friday as he presented the new head of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) to senior officials from the government agency. Pashinian said reforms carried out by the previous SRC chief, Vartan Harutiunian, are “not sufficient.” The SRC must avoid “hampering economic entities” and the at the same time vigorously combat tax evasion and increase tax revenue, he said. Pashinian also told Harutiunian’s successor, Davit Ananian, to “root out corruption” among tax and customs officers that has long been a major source of complaints by Armenian businesspeople. “The success of our efforts to transform the positive energy accumulated as a result of recent political developments into concrete economic results greatly depends on the work of the SRC, the tax and customs bodies,” he declared. “Mr. Prime Minister, I can assure you that we will accomplish the tasks which the country’s government will set for us,” said Ananian. Ananian worked as a deputy minister of finance from October 2016 until his appointment as SRC chief. The 46-year-old was a tax inspector in the 1990s and ran a private tax and accounting consultancy from 2006-2016. Armenia - A tax office in Yerevan, 8Nov2017. Harutiunian, who is close to former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, resigned on Thursday. He pledged to embark on a major reform reforms after being named to run the SRC in October 2016. The total amount of taxes and customs duties collected by the SRC rose by more than 7 percent last year, helping the government to cut the state budget deficit to 3.3 percent of GDP. The SRC reported an even faster rise in state revenue in the first quarter of this year. At 1.16 trillion drams ($2.4 billion), the Armenian government’s 2017 tax revenue was equivalent to almost 21 percent of GDP. The proportion is still quite low by international standards, reflecting the scale of tax evasion in Armenia. The tax-to-GDP ratio stood at less than 18 percent in 2012. It rose by 0.5 percentage points in 2017, according to the SRC. Harutiunian, whom Pashinian publicly thanked for his work, defended his track record in a farewell statement to the SRC employees issued on Friday. “The great effort to improve the [tax collection] system and the implementation of effective projects have borne fruit: relations between business and the state structure have been moved on to a plane of dialogue and partnership,” he said. The International Monetary Fund praised the Karapetian government’s “efforts to improve tax administration” already in June 2017. It said that they have “contributed to the higher-than-projected revenue collection.” New Justice Minister Warns Backers Of Jailed Opposition Gunmen • Artak Hambardzumian Armenia - Supporters of jailed members of an armed opposition group block a street in Yerevan, 16 May 2018. Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian on Friday urged supporters of an armed opposition group that seized a police station in Yerevan in 2016 to avoid destabilizing the situation in Armenia in the wake of what he called a democratic revolution. In recent days, several dozen people blocked a major street and a court building in the Armenian capital to demand the immediate release of the three dozen gunmen standing three separate trials on criminal charges stemming from their July 2016 standoff with security forces which left three police officers dead. They unblocked the street on Thursday following an appeal from Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. The latter said these and other disruptive protests held across the country are “not understandable” after the success of his “velvet revolution.” Zeynalian, who was appointed as justice minister last week, echoed the statements by Pashinian as well as former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, saying that “an atmosphere of lawlessness could ruin the country.” “Everyone must be conscious of their actions and make sure that they don’t damage the common interest,” he told a news conference. “This revolution is a unique revolution for the world and each of us is responsible for it. If something crosses our mind then we must not exclude that it may contradict others’ opinions.” Armenia - Artak Zeynalian of the opposition Yelk bloc at a parliament session in Yerevan, 12Dec2017. While unblocking Yerevan’s Arshakuniats Avenue, the radical protesters continued to surround on Friday a nearby court building where hearings are held in the ongoing trial of the ten leading members of the armed group. They thus prevented security forces from transporting the defendants back to their prisons. Representatives of the protesters met with Pashinian late on Thursday. Details of the meeting were not immediately made public. Pashinian, who was elected prime minister by the parliament on May 8, reiterated earlier this week that one of his immediate tasks is to secure the release of all “political prisoners” through solely legal mechanisms. But he said the case of the gunmen that had seized a police base in Yerevan’s Erebuni district is “a bit different” because of the three police casualties. He said it must be resolved as a result of public “discussions” that must involve relatives of the three slain policemen. The leader of the gunmen, Varuzhan Avetisian, condemned Pashinian’s remarks as “buffoonery” and “false humanism” in the courtroom on Wednesday. He again strongly defended the 2016 attack, saying that casualties are inevitable during such “rebellions.” New Anti-Corruption Body Planned In Armenia • Artak Hambardzumian Armenia - A government building in Yerevan, 29 March 2018. Armenia’s new government will set up a new and powerful state body in an effort to fulfill its pledges to eradicate endemic corruption in the country, Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian said on Friday. Zeynalian said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet will be more “resolute” than the previous Armenian governments in combatting bribery, cronyism and other corrupt practices. “The government is planning to create soon an anti-corruption body equipped with necessary legal guarantees and instruments,” he told a news conference. “That body will be empowered to take preventive, operational-investigative and educational measures. I want to stress that everything will be done to ensure its complete independence.” Zeynalian gave no further details, saying that the Justice Ministry is still working on a legal “concept” for the anti-graft body. Armenian civic organizations will also be involved in the effort, he said. Pashinian promised, among other things, to “root out” corruption when he was elected prime minister by the parliament on May 8 after weeks of massive street protests led by him. He had for years accused the previous government of not tackling the problem in earnest. Armenia has until now had two anti-corruption bodies. One of them has advised the prime minister while the other has processed mandatory income and asset declarations from the country’s 600 most high-ranking state officials. Serzh Sarkisian’s government was due to give the latter body more powers last month. Sarkisian declared in November that combatting corruption has become “a matter of national security.” His administration’s declared anti-graft efforts were for years dismissed as a gimmick by opposition politicians and civil society members. Armenia ranked, together with Macedonia, Ethiopia and Vietnam, only 107th out of 180 countries and territories evaluated in Transparency International’s 2017 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released in February. Armenian PM Eyes U.S. Support For Reform Agenda Armenia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with U.S. Ambassador Richard Mills in Yerevan, . Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Friday that he would welcome U.S. assistance to wide-ranging reforms planned by his government. Pashinian met with the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, to discuss the political situation in Armenia, U.S.-Armenian relations and regional security. “The Armenian government is interested in and attaches great importance to partnership with the American government and its possible assistance to democratization, the fight against corruption, human rights protection and reforms planned in other areas,” he told Mills. “We are full of energy to achieve our goals and concrete results, taking into account the positive atmosphere in the country,” he added in remarks publicized by his press office. Mills was reported to express Washington’s readiness to support the reform agenda of the new Armenian government. “The U.S. government is committed to supporting your stated goals of democracy, human rights, transparency and accountability, which will improve Armenia’s business environment and make the country more attractive to U.S. investors,” said the envoy. In a congratulatory message sent to the new Armenian premier earlier this week, U.S. President Donald Trump said he looks forward to “working with you on the many areas of mutual interest for our two countries.” Those include “strengthening trade ties, democratic institutions, and regional security,” wrote Trump. The U.S. State Department issued a similar statement hours after the Armenian parliament voted to elect Pashinian as prime minister on May 8 following weeks of massive anti-government protests organized by him. It said Washington will “work closely” with his government. Mills met with Armenia’s newly appointed Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan later in the day. According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, the two men reaffirmed their countries’ readiness to step up bilateral military cooperation. Press Review “Zhamanak” says that recent days’ protests staged in various parts of Armenia by groups of disgruntled citizens may have been spontaneous or organized by political circles keen to undercut Nikol Pashinian’s government. The paper claims that virtually all political forces other than Pashinian’s Civil Contract party are interested in the failure of his government. “This situation should not have been unexpected for Pashinian’s team,” it says. “The questions is which steps have been prepared for that.” “Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” says that what happened in Armenia was a political struggle not between two rivals groups but between the people and “a small group that had usurped power.” “And what is happening today is a continuation of that struggle which has nothing to do with internal political processes,” writes the paper. It says that Serzh Sarkisian and his clique are now trying to “again sit on the people’s necks.” Sarkisian is using his Republican Party (HHK) as a “weapon for achieving that goal,” it says. “One of the reasons for the revolution is that the authorities suffered a crushing defeat in the propaganda war,” editorializes “Aravot.” “It emerged that the [government] propagandists lagged behind modern life and were under the influence of stereotypes formed in the 1970s.” In particular, the paper says Sarkisian’s administration for years ordered TV channels to broadcast his 10-minute speeches in full, causing a “negative propaganda effect” on Armenians. “Now Pashinian appears on air a lot, but nobody is forced to show him,” it says. “The prime minister is shown because that is of interest to TV viewers for the simple reason that he became prime minister by the will of the people.” “After the victory of the velvet revolution many also expect a change in the composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC),” writes “Zhoghovurd.” “This is especially necessary before the fresh parliamentary elections because the current CEC headed by Tigran Mukuchian is associated with electoral fraud.” The paper quotes Mukuchian as saying that he has no plans to resign. (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org