Parliamentary majority did not include a bill on assistance to  farmers in the border regions of Armenia in the agenda of the session

ArmInfo. The lawmakers of the National Assembly of the 7th convocation on May 25 refused to include in the agenda of the session a bill guaranteeing the full sale of  agricultural products grown in the cultivated areas of the border  regions.

Independent MP Taguhi Tovmasyan, co-author of amendments to the law  "On social assistance of border communities" and the RA law "on  purchases," noted that farmers of border regions are in dire need of  state support in selling their products. Including due to sale  problems, as she pointed out, referring to the data of the  Statistical Committee, the sown area in 2020 decreased to 227,700  hectares, against 353,400 hectares in 2016. Independent MP Sofia  Hovsepyan added that this assistance is also important in the context  of measures against the devastation of the border settlements of the  republic.

The profile committee did not agree with Tovmasyan's arguments. Thus,  the chairman of the standing committee on territorial administration,  local self-government, agriculture and nature protection, lawmaker  from the ruling My Step bloc Vahe Ghalumyan said that the initiators  of the legislative draft during the discussions could not give  exhaustive answers to the questions asked by the committee. In  particular, as Ghalumyan pointed out, in the system of public  administration at present, unlike the economy of Soviet times, there  is no body capable of dealing with this issue. And, since there is no  such body that can calculate how much this initiative will cost, Vahe  Ghalumyan urged farmers to limit themselves to assistance programs  initiated by the Ministry of Economy, and to colleagues - to refuse  to include the bill in the agenda of the parliament meeting. The  representative of the committee on economic affairs Tsovinar  Vardanyan, in turn, urged not to speculate on the concepts of "war",  "border communities", saying that the authors of the bill could not  substantiate that the initiative's beneficiaries are exclusively  local residents. As a result, the initiative was rejected.