A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Before discussing the issues on the agenda, the Prime Minister touched upon a number of topics. Nikol Pashinyan first thanked Vahagn Khachaturyan for the joint work as the Minister of High-Tech Industry and wished him success in the post of the President of the Republic of Armenia.

The Prime Minister touched upon the issue of damaging the main gas pipeline from the Republic of Armenia to Artsakh. "In the recent days, especially in Artsakh, we see certain tension of the situation, which is underlined by the failure of the pipeline supplying natural gas to Artsakh. At this moment, I will refrain from giving any additional assessment, as we are working with the Artsakh authorities, our international partners, to stabilize and resolve the situation. In other words, let's not make assessments at the moment, just record that there is such a situation, try to focus on solving the problems," the Prime Minister said.

Referring to his working visit to France on March 8-9, Nikol Pashinyan assessed it as successful, noting, “Tonight our delegation returned from the French capital, where we participated in the Armenian-French forum organized jointly with the French government, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries. I think now we, based also on that conference, should give a new impetus to the economic cooperation between France and Armenia, and not only that." The Prime Minister noted that in addition to Armenia-France relations, a wide range of issues were discussed during the visit. The Prime Minister also noted that this year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with a number of countries. "In this connection, you know, my visit to the Russian Federation is scheduled for April. We are now in the preparatory phase of that visit. We must do everything possible to ensure that the visit also takes place at a high level and rich in content."

Nikol Pashinyan also referred to the 2022 report on democracy published by the Varieties of Democracy Institute. "A very important fact has been recorded for Armenia. For the first time in the history of our country, the Republic of Armenia is defined not by the term "electoral authoritarianism", but by "electoral democracy". This means that in terms of democracy there has been a change in the classification of the Republic of Armenia. That is, even after the non-violent, velvet, popular revolution of 2018, this organization continued to view Armenia as a country with an authoritarian electoral system. The meaning of this was that there was an authoritarian system that, in fact, used the electoral process to ensure its own reproduction. What is the essence of this new definition? The essence of this new definition is that the authorities are formed through elections, that is, elections are not an instrument of reproduction of power, but elections are an instrument of power formation. To put it very simply, we can state that the most recent example, with the early parliamentary elections in Armenia in 2021, the Republic of Armenia entered, relatively speaking, the top league of democracies, if we classify democracies, we can say so. It is very important that this organization also gives a general classification, taking into account the results of the activities of various democratic institutions within the country. Of course, this does not mean that democracy in our country is perfect or flawless, just by the sum of different episodes we got in such a category, which, I think, is worth mentioning. Of course, this does not mean that democracy in our country is perfect, just based on different episodes we received that classification, which, I think, is worth mentioning. And we must emphasize once again that democracy is a priority for us. And our Government is committed to establishing and developing democratic institutions in the Republic of Armenia. First of all, I would like to congratulate us on the change of this classification; I would like to draw our attention to two circumstances. We must try to occupy higher places in that top league every year. Secondly, we must be able to capitalize these indicators to serve the issues on the agenda of the Republic of Armenia," Prime Minister Pashinyan said.

The Government made amendments to the procedure for issuing housing purchase certificates for people in need of housing who were deported from Azerbaijan in 1988-1992. In the case of the implementation of the program in the region, based on the policy adopted by the Government of the Republic of Armenia to ensure the balanced development of the regions, it is necessary to include in the procedure a provision that the beneficiaries of the regions can buy apartments in one of the settlements only in the region where they are registered as beneficiaries.

The Government has made amendments to one of the previously adopted decisions. As a result, the administration of the state registration of the vehicle will be simplified and improved, saving the resources of the citizens the administrative bodies participating in the procedure. Accordingly, it is envisaged to check the fact that the property tax obligations of the vehicle have been fully fulfilled for that moment through the electronic system.