ArmInfo.The Democratic Party of Armenia fully supports the demands of the staff of the Ministry of Culture, opposing the disbandment of the ministry.
"On the contrary, every effort must be made to ensure that it works more efficiently, representing the centuries-old Armenian culture ", the statement of the Democratic Party reads. In a statement, party representatives called on the intellectuals to express their position on this issue. " We believe that the Armenian government should not rush to the decision and should organize public discussions. The Ministry of Culture in Armenia should be preserved and it should work with a double force, "the statement reads.
In turn, the Deputy Chairman of the RPA, the former Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan, referring to the possibility of the merge of Ministry of Culture with the Ministry of Education and Science, wrote on his Facebook page: "The Ministry of Education and Science is a big ministry that works hard day and night to cope with their affairs. This department can not do more and more work. The Ministry of Culture exists in all those countries, for which the issue of national identity is important, which have a huge cultural heritage or for which history and culture are of political importance. In Greece, Italy or Serbia, no one would ever think to close the Ministry of Culture. This year we received a huge blow at UNESCO, when the Azerbaijanis, because of our inaction managed to register their Kochari-like dance, while last year we, at the cost of great efforts, registered Kochari into the list of intangible cultural heritage of the Armenian people. The most dangerous moment in this story is that the Azerbaijanis recorded this dance as a regional dance of Nakhichevan, "Ashotyan wondered.
Referring to the disbandment of the Ministry of Diaspora, Ashotyan noted that once its establishment pursued two main goals, firstly, the Foreign Ministry could not cope with the whole spectrum of work with Diaspora, secondly, it was an important message in foreign policy. "It is no coincidence that after us Azerbaijan also conducts institutional work in this direction. Obviously, our Foreign Ministry will not be able to fully resolve all issues related to the Diaspora in the future. Optimization of the public administration system should not be an end in itself. Against the background of the huge questionable expenses of our today's authorities, this social blow, which is inflicted on thousands of people, has nothing to do with the stated goals, " Ashotyan concluded. To note, employees of the disbanded ministries of Culture and Diaspora today held a protest action, demanding that the government not liquidate these departments. Meanwhile, the Armenian government plans to liquidate the Ministry of Culture, and one part of its departments to merge with the Ministry of Education and Science, the other - with the City Planning Committee. It is not known yet which agency will perform the functions of Diaspora Ministry, but as the other day acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted, in the functions of almost all Armenian ministries there is a component of working with the Diaspora. To note, several months earlier one of Pashinyan's advisers declared the government's intention to reduce about 110 thousand public sector employees, against the background that in general about 160 thousand employees work in the state agencies. To recall, as a result of reforming the structure of the Government in Armenia, instead of 17 ministries, it is planned to leave 12.