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The National Assembly, being led by the Article 74 of the Constitution and Article 106 of the law “Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly” on June 20 began the debate of the draft law of the decision “On Approving the RA Government Programme.” The issue of the debate of the Government programme was included in the agenda of the first session of the National Assembly of the fifth convocation, and the work of the session was interrupted after the election of the leadership of the parliament and chairs of the committees, before the Government presented the programme of its activity.

Before turning to the agenda issue the President of the National Assembly Hovik Abrahamyan welcomed the deputies of the Heritage and the Armenian National Congress (ANC) factions, who were taking part in the NA sitting for the first time. They, as well as Hovhannes Sahakyan and Hovhannes Margaryan, who received the parliamentary mandate through proportional list of the RPA and Rule of Law parties, and were replacing respectively Gagik Beglaryan and Samvel Tadevosyan, who assumed posts in the executive body, according to the NA Rules of Procedure, swore in in the sitting.

In the established order of the Article 14 of the NA Rules of Procedure three parliamentary political forces, the ARF, the Heritage and the ANC factions announced about their being opposition in the sitting.

After the parliamentary elections RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan submitted to the legislators the newly formed Government programme. Before presenting the priorities the Prime Minister congratulated the deputies on being elected and wished them effective law-making work.

The programme submitted to the parliament has been made up, taking into account the main provisions of the strategy of the national security, the RA President, the Republican Party of Armenia and the Rule of Party pre-electoral programmes, the comparative ideas with the mentioned documents of other parliamentary parties. There are three basic priorities in the basis of the Government programme: rise of economic competitiveness as a main condition of long-term stable growth, development of human capital and institutional capabilities. The cooperation of the state and private sector will be one of the main directions of 2012-2017 economic policy.

In the parliament the Prime Minister concluded his speech with the words of the President of the republic: “The historical opportunity of building new Armenia is in our hands, without exaggeration in everybody’s hand, and we’ll do it.”

The Prime Minister also answered the 20 deputies’ questions, which related to the basic priorities in the programme.

Exchange of ideas was held on the Government programme, the NA Deputies expressed their opinions and positions.

The RPA deputies Ara Babloyan and Artak Zakaryan highly assessed the activity programme of the Government.

The opinions of the PAP faction member Naira Zohrabyan, members of the ANC faction Hrant Bagratyan and Nikol Pashinyan on the presented Government programme were negative.

In the extraordinary speech the RA Minister of Finance Vache Gabrielyan touched upon the opposition deputies’ sounded criticism, gave clarifications.

Stepan Demirchyan from the ANC faction, Alexander Arzumanyan from the Heritage faction, Aghvan Vardanyan, Vahan Hovhannisyan from the ARF factionrecorded that the programme was indefinite, unsubstantiated, the mechanisms and ways of the development of the mentioned spheres were not presented, hence they would vote against the presented Government programme.

Mikayel Melkumyan, Vardan Oskanyan from the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) faction also presented their views over the shortcomings of the Government.

Artak Davtyan, Davit Harutyunyan, Koryun Nahapetyan from the TPA faction noticed that the Government programme was substantiated and by consistent elaboration of the sub-programmes it would be possible to effectively call it into life.

The independent deputy Edmon Marukyan, not included in any NA faction, also conditioned the effective implementation by active participation and control of the public structures.

The other registered deputies of the National Assembly will deliver their speeches at June 21 NA sitting.