CoE became inconsistent
Armenia became member of the Council of Europe on 25 January 2001. Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, the former head of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, held a different opinion about Armenia's membership to the structure.
"I believed that after becoming a CoE member Armenia would take the path of democracy and will honour its commitments in connection with human rights issues. But we witnessed the reverse scenario; continually rigged elections and violations of freedom of speech became ordinary phenomenon in Armenia," Hovhannes Hovhannisyan told A1+.
According to Hovhannisyan, in the past ten years the CoE has attempted to help Armenian authorities solve the existing problems.
"But Armenian leadership seized the opportunity and became unbridled and bawdy and as a result we witnessed the post-election clashes of March 1, 2008. None of the PACE resolutions [the structure issued four resolutions after the events of March 1] has been committed by Armenia. CoE is not committed to its resolutions," said Mr. Hovhannisyan.
"The Council of Europe is no longer consistent with its actions. They put accent on long-term actions saying that European countries did not become democratic in a day. They do not realize that the process cannot go on for ever.
Today Armenian leadership is doing its best to "coax" European structures and cooperate with them in all issues in order to avoid the revelation of the March 1 murders and reopening of A1+."
