President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Pedro Agramunt, in addition to his Twitter post about his resignation, has also sent a letter to the PACE delegates stating that he is resigning on his doctor’s advice.
Aravot.am inquired of Arpine Hovhannisyan, Head of the Armenian delegation to PACE, whether Agramunt’s statement was surprising, taking into account the fact that on October 9, the first day of the PACE autumn session, the Assembly would put the issue of distrust on Agramunt to the vote, Arpine Hovhannisyan replied, “It was not a surprise to me, since in various contacts with the PACE delegates I had the expectation that Agramunt would resign. Some people even advised him to do that”.
Arpine Hovhannisyan told us that Pedro Agramunt tried to turn the wheel back during the whole session and bring the process back, tried to do anything not to leave.
Mrs. Hovhannisyan went into details in this regard: “Realizing that the process is irreversible and most likely members would vote for the issue on his distrust, and he would have to leave, he preferred to use a really symbolic word for personal reasons. Of course, he has come up with a ridiculous argument saying that he does it on the doctor’s advice. I think the personal reason was actually narrow personal, his personal material interest. He simply realized that it would be better if it was written “resigned from the post of the PACE President for personal reasons” in his biography, than to be written that he was distrusted, and dismissed from the office. Pedro Agramunt also addressed to different delegates in his letter that his doctor advised to resign due to health problems”.
We asked about the procedures that will follow Agramunt’s resignation. Arpine Hovhannisyan said, that the PACE Bureau will convene a meeting in the morning of October 9 before the start of the plenary session, and most likely it will be determined that the session will be headed by the oldest vice chairman.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
