Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, now in Italy on an official visit, delivered a speech entitled “Dialogue on the Future.” at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies in Milan on November 20.

In his remarks, Prime Minister Pashinyan stated, in part:

“Ladies and gentlemen,

It is an honor for me to be here at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies – one of the top think-tanks in Italy and worldwide. I know that 2019 marks the 85th anniversary of the establishment of this institute. During its decades-long activity, combining policy-oriented research with an equally significant commitment to education, the institute has gone through volatile periods of history, bringing its contribution to policymaking worldwide.

So, once again thank you for the invitation to address this audience.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have no doubt that all of you here have heard about the non-violent, peaceful Velvet revolution that happened in Armenia in April, 2018. This revolution, being inner-driven without an outer support, was the hope of the Armenian people to reject decades-long era of corruption and fraud, to establish the rule of law over the rule of power.

Having assumed the responsibility to lead marches of protests, I clearly realized that in the history of the third Armenian statehood there has never been a time of greater promise, and, at the same time, a potential peril. I clearly realized that I had no right to let all those people down - women and men, the young and the old, who were following me.

We started a march of protest, walking from Armenia’s second largest city Gyumri to capital Yerevan. With every step bringing us closer to the capital, the responsibility was rising at twice the speed. And we succeeded. The Armenian people proved that they are strong when they are mobilized and united.

With the Velvet Revolution we managed to return the authority into the hands of the people. The next thing we did was the snap parliamentary election. Last December we held parliamentary elections that were defined by our international partners as free, fair, democratic and competitive. This was the first parliamentary election in our country, the official results of which were not contested in the Constitutional Court and the first parliamentary elections, the results of which were unanimously adopted by all political forces and the public at large.
After the elections, I clearly realized that the expectations of the people were very high, the promise of the revolution was quite big. We needed to translate the energy and excitement generated by wide scale mobilization into the work of building democratic institutions.

No doubt that in terms of values and aspirations of the people, democracy has won a landslide victory in Armenia. Today democracy has already become a part of our identity. However, we realize that we need to strengthen democracy institutionally in order to make it irreversible. We need to protect democracy from those who want to make a revenge and turn the clock back.
With this end in view, we launched reforms aimed at ensuring the rule of law, accountable governance, protection of fundamental rights and freedom.

Today, in our reforms we put emphasis on building our institutions, and the judiciary, in this regard, is of primary importance. It is well known that without a truly independent judiciary and public trust towards the judicial system, it is not possible to establish a fully functioning democracy and the rule of law. But that trust has to be earned. It has been broken for a long period of time, and needs efforts to be repaired. With the help of our international partners, we are on the track of earning it back.

In this context, I want to emphasize the role of the European Union, which has become Armenia’s primary partner in institution building and in implementing our reform agenda. The Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement between Armenia and the European Union is of a particular importance to this end. It is noteworthy that the CEPA is a reform-generating tool, and the fulfillment of its provisions entails qualitative changes in many areas of our society.

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