The Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting on the margins of the Assembly's autumn plenary session in Strasbourg, approved the following statement yesterday:

“The Monitoring Committee welcomes the progress of constitutional reform in Armenia, which has been conducted in close co-operation with the Venice Commission. This has resulted in a text that, in the view of the Venice Commission, is of high quality and in line with international standards.

The committee similarly welcomes the fact that the constitutional changes will be adopted by referendum, and it calls on all political forces to participate in the referendum and the consultations that are part of it.

The committee notes that some issues in the proposed reform are politically contentious and hotly debated in Armenian society. The choice of political system is for Armenian citizens, and only for them, to decide in the forthcoming referendum. The committee therefore calls on all political stakeholders to ensure that the referendum is conducted according to the highest democratic standards.”