On February 1, the Delegation of the European Union to Armenia officially launched the “Stop the Flow of Corruption” communication campaign.

It was developed in cooperation with the Government of Armenia, anti-corruption experts, representatives of the civil society and the private sector. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the negative effects of corruption and highlight the EU’s efforts in support of the fight against corruption in Armenia. It will continue throughout 2017 to bring attention to different aspects of corruption and show how it is being fought in Armenia.

Head of the EU Delegation to Armenia, Ambassador Piotr Switalski wants to make 2017 the year of the fight against corruption.

“We believe that this year will give the opportunity to make a decisive step in the fight against corruption,” he said, welcoming the efforts of the new Armenian Government and civil society, which lead to legal amendments. The Ambassador stressed a number of priorities of the campaign.

Regarding electoral process in particular, “Political corruption is one of our priorities. It is extremely important to speak about the bad practices, which hinder the election process, ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections. We need to speak about vote buying and electoral fraud that have very negative consequences for Armenia,” the Ambassador said.

The next priority is the importance of disconnecting business from politics. “Political partnerships should not serve the business and vice versa, the business people should not enter politics,” the Ambassador stressed.

According to him, the goal of the campaign is to introduce the fight against corruption widely in the society, and the success of the initiative mainly depends on the respond of common people. He calls on Armenian citizens to display zero tolerance towards any case of corruption.

The campaign will explain to Armenian public through comprehensible tools – animated films, videos, leaflets – what evils corruption brings and how it can damage the society.

The Ambassador attached importance to the fact that Armenia’s new Government placed the fight against corruption among its priorities and makes significant efforts in forming a new institutional and constitutional field and introducing new systems in the fight against corruption.

President of Armenian Lawyers’ Association Karen Zadoyan also thinks that the fight against corruption acquired a significant pace recently. According to him, the results will become visible within 1.5 or 2 years and as soon as the next year in the graphs of international agencies.

Zadoyan’s organization presented to the government 6 suggestions for making the fight against corruption more efficient:

-    Criminalization of illicit enrichment,

-    Foundation of an independent anti-corruption agency,

-    Adoption of a regulation on informers protection,

-    Launch of a centre for the fight against departmental corruption,

-    Introduction of the institute of real owners,

-    Disclosure and solution of corruption issues in business sector in the Government – NGOs – business associations format.

The draft law on criminalization of illicit enrichment had already been signed by the President of Armenia and will come into force on July 1. As for creation of an independent anti-corruption agency, the Armenian Ministry of Justice formed a working group to define the final approach.

Zadoyan stressed that the near future will see development of a digital platform where citizens can report corruption cases. He attached importance to protection of these people’ rights and suggested to prepare a corresponding law, which will establish a mechanism of legal protection for the informers of corruption crimes.

Other suggestions are in the stage of preliminary discussions now.

In his turn, Deputy Minister of Justice of Armenia Suren Krmoyan believes that it is important to use human potential and a range of innovative tools in order to make the fight against corruption efficient.

“Digital tools allow forming transparency, efficiency, and a participation governance system. That is what we want to achieve,” he noted.

The Deputy Minister brands as progress the fact that the digital registration system was introduced in the state-citizens relations in a number of sectors – registration of notary and civil acts, etc, which reduced paper work. Another digital system, this one for license journals, is being introduced now in the business sector.

According to the Deputy Minister, the Government will be consistent in the fight against corruption. It already criminalized illicit enrichment, set the rates of cash circulation for high-ranking officials, and established legislative mechanisms for disclosure of real owners of tendering winner companies.

It’s noteworthy that by now the EU already spent EUR 15 million on the support for fight against corruption in Armenia and is ready to make it continuous with the condition of seeing clear signs from the Government and civil society that the fight is not an imitation. The newly launched “Stop the Flow of Corruption” communication campaign is one of the primary means to promote intolerance towards corruption.

Davit Alaverdyan

This article was produced in the framework of the EU Neighbours east project. The views expressed are solely the ones of the author of the article.