"Civilitas" Foundation will soon release its annual report.
"This release is aimed at evaluating the political and economic realities of Armenia and those of the world that have an impact on the Republic of Armenia. We called last year's report "Crisis and Opportunity". Today, taking a glance back, we could say that the crisis truly showed itself and the opportunities were not taken advantage of. The political and economic crisis had a huge impact on Armenia and the country missed out on the opportunity to take daring steps that were necessary during the crisis," as stated in the statement issued by "Civilitas".
Taking a glance back at the events in2009, the Foundation believes that the promise for great changes went under the shade of group interests. "It is not about the interests of any individual or group, but the promise for tomorrow's opportunities. The promise today's imperative, the opportunity at the moment and the demand. The year began and ended with the crisis, which led to serious consequences in all three countries of the South Caucasus. This year promised a serious blow to the nation's fragile economy and that promise was fulfilled. The sharp decline was reflected in all ratings of macro-economy and put the instable social improvement of the past years in danger. The decline also made the structural issues of the economy apparent."
The Foundation is not pleased with Armenia's activities at the regional level. "The year promised improvement of relations with neighboring countries, but the promise was not fulfilled. The reality was complicated and multifaceted. The hope that the Turkish government would fulfill the promise of truly ending the process of normalization of relations with Armenia seemed less true at the end of the year than in the beginning. A year ago, many believed or wanted to believe that the initiated process would change the situation. But at the end of the year, the statements by the sides reinforced the doubts of those who underestimated the process.
These geopolitical events also had an impact on relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement became dependent on the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations, although the danger of linkage of these two processes was clear for even the most optimistic observers."
"Civilitas" is also dissatisfied with the fulfillment of the Armenian authorities' promises to solve the inter-political issue. "Armenia also didn't fulfill the promise to solve internal issues. Many issues concerning fundamental rights and freedoms and democratic institutions that had emerged in the wake of the elections of the previous year remained unsolved. The deeply radical political and economic monopolies, the authorities' lack of will to change the order of economic and regional policy in conditions of lack of public confidence and the lack of necessary courage contributed to the radicalization of disappointment among the society and the reinforcement of monopoly of the power," as stated in the introduction to the 2009 annual report by "Civilitas" Foundation.
