Today we were informed that the EU 13 countries have worked out an action plan for continuing cooperation with countries of the Eastern Partnership project. In Armenia this project is called “European Package.”
In Armenia we notice a shocking phenomenon. The government calls all of its actions, even the most negative with a lofty goal – “We are doing it for the people.” It means they usually do it for the people, whose pockets are emptied for this goal.
While the society and political powers are waiting till the decree of the Constitutional Court on the government-proposed pension fund law on March 28, the Central Bank has come up with an announcement which demolished all expectations of the society from the Constitutional Court.
The summarized indexes of the year are not ready yet but according to the National Statistics Service in January-September DFI in Armenia reduced by 62,1% (about three times) and amounted to 409,6 million. So we should sadly record that in 2013 the picture is dire. Under these circumstances we have two options.
Last year the Global Financial Integrity organization published a report entitled “Illegal financial outflow from developing countries 2002-2011,” which caused a lot of discussion among the Armenian government.
Since the fall session of the parliament ANC MPs have asked a number of times why the parliament does not discuss the bill on compensating homicide victims as suggested by European convention. The bill is in the parliament’s agenda for ten years.
Unfortunately the decision of Sargsyan has left Armenia more dependent than even on Russia. Armenian society seems to be much more passive than Ukrainian in terms of fighting for a better and more democratic future where human rights, freedoms and the rule of law are respected.
Of course, in the event of creation of the ad hoc the opposition would in a more substantiated manner present the negative consequences of the gas agreement, the criminal initiative of accumulating 300 million USD debt. As a result, they might have even prepared some kind of report. Even besides the opposition examination it would be enough to launch big criminal cases against the ones, who initiated this deal based on the report presented by the government.
Perhaps everybody has seen the commercial of the new pension reform with participation of the devil and the angel. In that commercial the angel is trying to persuade the public that the more you invest in the pension fund the more the state will invest on your behalf.
The American Forbes has published a rating list entitled “Russia’s real estate kings 2014” with 30 people. This list includes local and foreign businessmen’s names who own commercial real estate properties in Russia. The classification is written in an order of incomes that the owners of real estate businesses could earn from their properties. This list does not include incomes from other businesses. Samvel Karapetyan, head of Tashir holding, is in the second place of this list with $3.8 billion (29th place). His income from rent of properties is estimated at $960 million.
