RFE/RL Armenian Report – 02/05/2021

                                                Friday, 

Armenia To Build New Hospitals With World Bank Loans


Armenia - A newly built hospital in Vanadzor, November 10, 2018.

The World Bank has approved $7.4 million in fresh loans designed to help the 
Armenian government build and equip two new provincial hospitals.

In a statement issued late on Thursday, the bank said they will serve as 
“additional financing” for a healthcare project launched in Armenia in 2013. It 
had lent the country’s former government $35 million at the time.

The statement said the expanded project will close “financial gaps” for the 
construction of the hospitals that will be located in Gegharkunik and Vayots 
Dzor provinces.

It quoted the head of the World Bank office in Yerevan, Sylvie Bossoutrot, as 
saying that more than 137,000 local residents will gain access to “quality 
medical care” as a result of the project. The bank has already financed the 
construction of 18 regional medical centers in Armenia, said Bossoutrot.

The statement added that the extra funding will also increase the country’s 
capacity to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

“Due to limitations in hospital capacity during the pandemic for clinical 
management of COVID-19 cases in Vayots Dzor region, cases requiring intensive 
care were transferred to hospitals in surrounding regions, introducing delays in 
accessing services and increasing the risk of mortality,” it said.



Armenia Slides In Global Democracy Ranking

        • Artak Khulian

ARMENIA -- Police detain demonstrators during a rally demanding the resignation 
of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian over his handling of the conflict with 
Azerbaijan, December 8, 2020.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a London-based think-tank, has downgraded 
Armenia’s position in its annual survey of the state of democracy around the 
world.

Armenia fell from 86th to 89th place in the EIU’s latest Democracy Index after 
rising substantially in the global ranking during the previous two years.

The EIU rates 167 countries and territories on five indicators, including civil 
liberties and electoral process and pluralism, and divides them into four 
categories: “full” and “flawed” democracies, “hybrid regimes” and “authoritarian 
regimes.”

Armenia remains in the “hybrid regime” category of nations with an aggregate 
democracy “score” of 5.35 out of 10. The EIU gave it 5.54 points in the 
Democracy Index 2019 released a year ago.

“Armenia’s score declined significantly in 2020, after the country had bucked 
the regional trend and registered significant improvement in 2018-19,” reads 
latest EIU report.

“As a result of the armed conflict with Azerbaijan over the breakaway region of 
Nagorny Karabakh, the Armenian government imposed martial law which 
significantly limited citizens’ freedoms, including freedom of expression. 
Martial law continued even after the fighting was ended via a ceasefire and was 
used as a pretext to disperse anti-government protests and detain opposition 
leaders,” it says.

Daniel Ioannisian of the Yerevan-based Union of Informed Citizens played down 
Armenia’s drop in the democracy ranking. He argued that the country still did 
much better than in EIU surveys conducted before the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” 
that brought Nikol Pashinian to power.

“Although we have regressed, it is not that terrible and not comparable to the 
pre-revolution years,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday.

Ioannisian noted that Pashinian’s government restricted civil liberties not only 
during the recent war but also after imposing a state of emergency in March to 
contain the coronavirus pandemic.

“For example, the freedom of speech in Armenia was restricted at the start of 
emergency rule, from March 13 to April 16, which was quite controversial. It’s 
good that this restriction was quickly lifted,” he said.

Armenian opposition groups have accused the government exploiting the state of 
emergency and ensuing martial law to crack down on dissent.

They have also denounced it for enacting in June 2020 constitutional amendments 
that significantly changed the composition of the country’s Constitutional 
Court. The court was locked in a yearlong standoff with Pashinian.



Pashinian Hails Lifting Of Russian Travel Ban

        • Satenik Kaghzvantsian

Kazakhstan -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) greets his Russian 
counterpart Mikhail Mishustin at a Eurasian Economic Union meeting in Almaty, 
February 5, 2021.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again welcomed on Friday the Russian government’s 
decision to lift a coronavirus-related entry ban for Armenians, saying that it 
will reduce their economic hardship.

Moscow banned the entry of visitors from many foreign countries last spring as 
part of its efforts to contain the coronavirus pandemic. It subsequently allowed 
citizens of some countries, including all other members of the Russian-led 
Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) except Armenia, to visit Russia.

The ban directly affected tens of thousands of Armenian migrant workers earning 
a living in Russia on a seasonal or permanent basis. Many of them had to return 
to Armenia following lockdown restrictions imposed across Russia last March.

After repeated appeals from the Armenian government Moscow last week allowed 
Armenian citizens testing negative for COVID-19 to enter Russia by air from 
February 1 to March 1. They have to use a special mobile phone application 
certifying negative results of their coronavirus tests taken shortly before 
their departure from Armenia.

Pashinian “noted with satisfaction” the lifting of the ban when he spoke at a 
meeting of the prime ministers of Russia and other EEU member states held in 
Kazakhstan. He said that the move is of “fairly great social and economic 
significance” for Armenia.

Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigorian said on Thursday that 1,423 Armenian 
citizens flew to Moscow and other Russian cities from Yerevan on February 1-3. 
More than 1,260 others returned to Armenia from Russia in the three-day period, 
Grigorian told Pashinian during a cabinet meeting in Yerevan.

Flights to Russia from Armenia’s second international airport located in Gyumri 
resumed on Thursday evening. Gyumri and the surrounding Shirak province have for 
decades suffered from high unemployment and poverty, forcing a large part of the 
region’s population to work in Russia.

“I’m going [to Russia] for work. I was stuck here for a year because of the 
pandemic,” one local resident, Onik Poghosian, said as he prepared to board a 
Gyumri-Moscow flight on Friday.

“My family will stay here and I will come back again,” Poghosian told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service.

Armenuhi Ghasaboghlian was at the Gyumri airport to see off her son and his 
family that had emigrated to Russia in the 1990s but returned to Armenia 
following the 2018 “Velvet Revolution.” She said the family decided to again 
leave the country.

“Our living conditions were such that we realized that we can’t sufficiently 
provide for the children,” explained the woman. “We weren’t scared of the 
coronavirus or the war [in Nagorno-Karabakh.]”


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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