Two days ago, the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (National Coordinator, Boris Navasardyan) conveyed a conference on Helsinki topic, and, today, the Open Society Foundation (Director, Larisa Minasyan) initiated a public discussion on the same topic. During the Friday conference, a slight hint was voiced that the Open Society Institute, through EaP CSF, had some expectations from the European Union, and the EaP CSF National Coordinator, Boris Navasardyan, reprimanded even the EU representatives present at the conference, in humor, that when we write that the conference is supported by you, people think that there are a lot of finances, and feel bad that they do not have a share. Today, quite unfavorable remarks were voiced during the public discussion addressed to the EaP CSF. First, it was found out that at least two NGOs present at the public discussion: Levon Barseghyan’s “Asparez” and Stepan Grigoryan’s “Analytical Center on Globalization and Regional Cooperation”, suspended their membership to that forum consisting of more than 180 NGOs.
Levon Barseghyan explained their decision as follows: “A moment has come to be called the moment of truth. The national platform of the civil society is accountable for all of these (to be evaded from the European orientation). This is not an environmental platform, this is the platform of Armenia’s participation and civil society’s European integration to the Eastern Partnership. I think this platform, consisting of 150 NGOs, should have called Serzh Sargsyan to account, asking who has authorized him to come up with a statement somewhere on behalf of the entire Armenian society. As soon as the platform expressed a position, it took the position to dialogue and negotiate with the authorities demonstrating official insanity, we froze our membership to the platform.” And, Stepan Grigoryan said regarding the same topic, “The conference on civil society platform was held parallel to the conference on Vilnius Eastern Partnership Member Countries. There was a great enthusiasm, when the Ukrainian National Platform symbolically signed an Association Agreement with the European Civil Society Platform. We did not do such thing, even though we could. Our NGO suspended its membership to the platform, and one of the reasons was that we need to react the situation. And, what should our national platform do, if there is no more issue left? I was very much surprised that no one from Armenia made a speech at the panel sessions during this two-day active Civil Forum, where the experts of six countries were making speeches, and which was a very active process.”
Melania BARSEGHYAN
