2024-03-27 23:29:02
Arpine Vardanyan, deputy of the “Hayastan” faction, made a statement in the National Assembly. We present the speech in its entirety below.
“Dear compatriots,
Today I want to draw your attention to the growing threat of emigration, which continues to be one of the main challenges of Armenia. During one of the government meetings, these authorities recorded that as a result of their policies, they had unprecedented demographic successes. The question arises, what kind of successes? How much has the demographic situation of Armenia improved and what steps are you taking to stop the worsening process of emigration?
Even if in the last 1-2 years, for known reasons, the flow of people from Russia and other countries has increased, the demography in Armenia continues to deteriorate. according to unofficial data, 28 thousand Armenians and thousands of Artsakh Armenians left Armenia in 2023. During these 5 years, 112,629 Armenians left the Republic of Armenia. To understand more objectively, let me say that a city with a population the size of Gyumri would be emptied. AND in order to understand where you are taking our country with similar indicators, I recommend comparing these statistics with neighboring countries.
It seems that one of the main missions of this government should be not only to keep Armenian citizens in Armenia, but also to return our compatriots living abroad to Armenia.
When you listen to the Minister of Economy, the Minister of Social Affairs or other representatives of the government, who talk about the improvement of the economy, the growth of the GDP and other indicators, the question arises as to what is the reason for such a decline in emigration. In your opinion, under the conditions of stable demographic development, the population of Armenia should reached 5 million, but today the picture is different. The number 1 reason for emigration is security, low education level, high inflation and good job opportunity in another country.
It is logical. the more emigration continues, the less soldiers we will have, and we are, I think, a country at war. Go to the marzes, enter the villages, see how many families there are in the villages, and how many families live in them, how many men aged 25-60 are in our villages… we also have an outflow of qualified personnel, and the reasons are not only related to socio-economic well-being, but also with the lack of social justice, corruption, rule of law deficit and many other issues. And people are emigrating from their country, where the bright future you promised is not even mentioned.”