On May 5 in “Armenia Marriott” hotel the works began “Armenia and Council of Europe: Five-Year Membership” forum, where MPs, officials, representatives of international structures and others participated.

Boyana Urumova, Special Representative of the General Secretary of the Council of Europe in Armenia welcomed those present. She asked to pay tribute with one minute’s silence in remembrance of the victims, who died on May 3 because of Yerevan-Sochi tragic plane crash. Welcoming the forum participants Boyana Urumova highly assessing the achievements of Armenia’s last years and talked about the perspectives.

Artur Baghdasaryan, NA President delivered a speech on the achievements of the five-year membership and perspectives. Firstly, he expressed his condolences and support to the victims’ relatives, then said: “Five years have passed from the day when Armenia became full member of the Council of Europe, and those five years we assess as years of sustainable progress. During these five years we display not passive attitude, but initiative activity, as a result of which more than 100 laws have been passed in Armenia connected with our European integration. The consecutive deepening of European integration and the ongoing work for European values is of great importance for us. I’m convinced that in future we’ll resume with the same consecutiveness the path of European integration and we hope to complete very soon the laws that are connected our obligations, which we should pass and with that make a step on the path of the process that we’ve adopted. I’m convinced that we should fight for European values, we should cherish the faith that we have and we should be devoted to the ideas, which will lead us to European integration. It’s very important that we mark together the five years of membership of our country, summing up the work done and speaking about the future that we strive.”

Congratulating those present on the occasion of the five-year membership Vartan Oskanyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs noted that we’ve passed difficult path, after which new perspectives are passed in the aspect of democratic processes. As Mr. Oskanyan said in order to become a complete democratic state we still have serious things to do. He noted that in order to have the laws of our country more in conformity with European standards during these five years a number of laws and legal acts have been passed. The Minister of Foreign Affairs noticed that one of our obligations of the membership to the Council of Europe was also the peaceful settlement of NK conflict. He underscored that in this process the use of force should ruled out and the role of the Council of Europe is great for the solution of the issue through peaceful negotiation way.

According to Jean-Louis Laurens, Director General of Political Affairs of the General Secretariat of the Council of Europe, May 5 should be a day of celebration, happiness but, unfortunately, today it’s a day of sorrow and remembrance. First, Mr. Laurens expressed his condolences to the victims’ close relatives, who died on May 3 because of Yerevan-Sochi tragic plane crash, then he touched upon the last five years of the history of Armenia and the developments concerning the membership of Armenia to the Council of Europe. As he said, the most important achievement given from the membership of the Council of Europe is Armenia’s stance, role and presence in Europe. It was noted that the free and fair elections are the cornerstone of democracy. Speaking about new Constitution, Mr. Laurens noted that it will help the country to go forward to modern democracy.

During the discussion “Inter-parliamentary Relations: Means of Strengthening Democratic Security” Armen Roustamyan, Chairman of NA Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, member of the Armenian delegation in PACE. He noted that as a result of collapse of the USSR all states that gained independence appeared before the fatal choice what value system to choose and how safe and fast complete the transition period. The Armenian people made a choice of historical importance appropriate to its character and biography and turned to Europe and with the support of European countries and institutions strive to be part of European big family. The fulfillment of the national, state goals depends the success of the Euro-Integration process. And emanating from the responsibility of those standards we should assess the effectiveness of Euro-Integration process. Mr. Roustamyan noted that in that process the negative thing is in rates of reaching those achievements: firstly, the difference between Armenia and Europe should be consistently and gradually reduced (Europe going forward won’t expect us), then the slow process can’t ensure the necessary depth of reforms and can result in the weakness of the society’s progressive forces and delay the perspective of establishing democratic stability in our country. Mr. Roustamyan considers as main guarantee of providing irreversibility and effectiveness of the process the neutralization of the negative phenomena through preserving the positive tendencies. He considered of priority the acceleration of progressive rates of the country to European fundamental values, which is possible when Armenia turns into the stage of localization and use of European experience and appropriate mechanisms from harmonization stage with European norms and standards, the main directions of which are: the increase of effectiveness of management system, the establishment of law priorities, the activation of anticorruption fighting, from the declaration of human rights to their state guarantee and full ensuring, the formation of the civil society with practical mechanisms of civil control and poverty reduction. An opportunity was created to provide essential move in these directions with changed Constitution, and, of course, with gradually deepening cooperation with CE and EU, based on deeper programmes. In Mr. Roustamyan’s opinion the 2007 parliamentary and 2008 presidential elections will be the most important checking of assessing the effectiveness of Euro-Integration process. In these processes the cooperation of the National Assembly and the Council of Europe is difficult to overestimate. The past five years proved and made obvious that five years ago the membership of Armenia to the Council of Europe was of historical importance and was crucial for the development of our country towards civilized and progressive world.

Stepan Demirchyan, head of Ardarutiun/Justice faction, member of the Armenian delegation in PACE, noted that joining the Council of Europe, Armenia has undertaken a number of obligations in respect of democratizing the country, having mechanisms in the protection of human rights and conforming the human rights volumes with the adopted European standards. According Mr. Demirchyan, the role of Venice Commission is great in respect of conforming the legislation of Armenia to European standards. Touching upon the problem of NK conflict, the MP believes that processes of Karabakh conflict settlement and establishment of regional cooperation should go on in parallel. As he said, the settlement of Karabakh conflict is not realistic without participation of Karabakh. He believes that we should respect the Karabakh people’s self-determination right, and Karabakh should become participant of negotiation process.

Other high-ranking officials also participated in the discussions and delivered speeches.