Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today attended a reception hosted for representatives of the public administration system along with His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians and Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan, as reported the news service of the Staff of the Prime Minister of Armenia.

In his speech, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan particularly stated the following:

“In democratic systems, the public administration system must not hinder the normal public, political and economic life of the country. Our government has set the political objective to be guided by such logic, and recapping the year 2019, we must ask to what extent we have met the objective and how well we have worked in 2019.

Overall, if we look at the results, we will see that there have been times when the government has done a great job, and there have been times when the government has done a very bad job. In essence, we must admit the fact that we are making an attempt to make democratic reforms within a system of governance that was established in a mainly authoritarian system in the Republic of Armenia. We need to formulate the question correctly in order to find the right answers. In this situation, we need to make reforms in public governance consistently and show an individualized approach when it comes to assessment of the work of government officials.

We also have problems in all sectors of public administration. There are good and bad officials within all ministries and public administration bodies, and we must approach this issue carefully. Generally speaking, people blame our government for not being revolutionary enough in terms of public administration, but I would like to draw our attention to the fact that the methodology of the non-violent, velvet and people’s revolution in Armenia in 2018 was the same and led to political changes in the country. There were forces in Armenia for which the political changes were an end in itself and sometimes it was heralded that it can be achieved in any way. We never thought so, and will never think so because for us, what was important was the content of the changes. It was this approach thanks to which we have the current results in the first full year following the revolution.

Allow me to say that this year was an exceptionally post-revolutionary year. I won’t claim that there hasn’t been such a precedent in any country. However, even if there has been such a precedent, there have been very few precedents when a country has managed to ensure at least 7.5% economic growth, ensure stability in the armed forces, the legal system, the judiciary and all sectors of life in the country after the political changes. Making a revolution and maintaining stability is itself an exclusive phenomenon. We need to admit this, and we have to rejoice and take pride. Yes, we can take pride in the level of development, but we have more ambitions and aspirations. I want all of us to leave the bad work experience in the past and be positive in 2020.

Dear attendees, allow me to cordially wish you, your family members and all the employees of your ministries, departments, public administration and local self-government bodies and the judiciary a Happy New Year and Christmas and wish that in 2020 we are capable of not only maintaining the pace that we had in 2019, but also make more positive changes for the citizens of the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Artsakh and the Armenian people in general. And so, long live the Republic of Armenia, long live our children who are living and will live in a free and happy Armenia. And, of course, the Republic of Armenia is a free, sovereign and dignified state, and the Republic of Armenia will be freer, more sovereign and more dignified every year. Thank you.”