'Deep' economic crisis prompts government action to revise Armenia's 2021 State Budget - opposition MP

The economic crisis, which increasingly deepened in Armenia due to the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), necessitates further government action to revise this year's chief fiscal document, an opposition MP from the Bright Armenia party said today, highlighting also the heavy social burden upon the state.

"With the state's social burden having essentially increased, we insist on revising the 2021 [State] Budget, i.e. - submitting a new draft. That is actually why we voted against the 2021 Budget," Arkady Khachatryan, the chairman of a committee tasked with assessing the anti-coronavirus measures, told Tert.am at the National Assembly.

Admitting the numerous challenges facing the state, the lawmaker also called for further efforts towards developing a security strategy  to address both the defense and socio-economic concerns.

"The solution lies in the modernization of the economy and qualitative accentuations, as technological re-equipment and the education sector reforms have practically no alternative. Around two months have now passed [since the end of the fighting], and the government should have naturally taken serious steps to elaborate the security strategy, but all that is contingent upon security-related issues, with the return of captives being our society's top concern. Many families are awaiting the [repatriation of] our fallen heroes' remains; that question has remained open too," he said, ruling out any solution to global problems without overcoming the "political crisis".

Asked whether they rely on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's ability and efforts to offer real solutions, the lawmaker hesitated to predict an optimistic scenario. "We have repeatedly stated it, and the roadmap, which was proposed to the society, deals exactly with that, i.e. - the formation of a technocratic government. We can address those issue after a certain stabilization given the vast variety of the existing social, economic and security-related challenges," Khachatryan added.