Former First Deputy Minister of Economy and former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to the Netherlands Garegin Melkonyan regrets that Armenia has underperformed the EU budget allocations by 85-90%. Aravot asked about what money this refers to. Garegin Melkonyan answered, “The average annual amount was about 15-17 million euros, or 8-9 billion AMD. That money is a pity.”
Garegin Melkonyan said that is why the EU provided an interesting solution to the problem. In particular, when the coronavirus was raging in 2020, and in connection with that, the EU came to the political approach that it should provide financial assistance packages related to the pandemic to other countries, the existing funds were restructured under the coronavirus support and provided to Armenia.
Garegin Melkonyan detailed, “There is a subtlety here that almost no one has fixed. The financial resources provided to Armenia to fight the coronavirus were mainly a very large percentage of the money that Armenia would receive if it carried out its duties through budget support programs. This is money that we had with the EU budget support programs. If we did not fulfill the obligations, we would not receive it.” The problem is that if Armenia had fulfilled its obligations, the EU would have received both the funds provided by the EU budget support program and financial support for the fight against coronavirus. Garegin Melkonyan has been the National Coordinator of EU Assistance to Armenia for many years. According to him, budget support has always been very important because due to non-fulfillment of one demand, the country loses twice, and it does not receive money or make reforms. He clarified, “The budget loses a grant. Those are not loans. We do not receive credit from the EU. If in other cases Armenia takes a loan and pays interest, in this case the budget loses money just because we did not do our duties. That is at least unacceptable.”
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Aravot asked about what was not done, for example, and Garegin Melkonyan answered, “For example, the EU would provide 12.5 million euros to Armenia for the improvement of qualifications and better jobs, none of which were canceled, therefore they remained as a legal obligation, for which there would be monetary allocations. EUR 8 million assistance for the protection of human rights in Armenia, which has not been done either. A total of 98.5 million euros was published, of which 68.5 million euros were to be budget support from the EU. As for the budget support program, all these programs are internationally signed international agreements.”
Garegin Melkonyan responded to our observation of whether there may have been reforms that were not unequivocally accepted by the public, such as the Istanbul Convention, in connection with which the demand was not fulfilled.
“Such a thing does not happen. There is a negotiation stage beforehand and the country looks at its realities. There is reform, which is a good thing, but the country knows it can not do it.” Garegin Melkonyan answered that there were announcements that the EU would provide 6.5 billion euros to Armenia, and then there were also announcements that they were going to allocate 2.5 billion euros.
“The EU did not say that we will allocate so many billion euros to Armenia, but it said that they will support and make efforts to allocate up to this amount. This means that the EU is thinking about allocating so much money, that is, they can discuss it and ask their partners to add to the existing money. That is, this is not just EU money. Other donors are also involved. But they are already a loan, so to assume that the EU said we would give you that much money is not true. Besides, it is still a theoretical conversation. It will also assess the ability to digest, so to speak. In other words, if it brings a package of billions, do you, as a state, have that institutional capacity to do so? There is a lot of work to be done so that what has been said becomes a negotiation, an agreement is reached, a paper is signed, and then Armenia fulfills those signed obligations and receives money in return.”
Tatev Harutyunyan
