Armenian MP: our mission is to develop real mechanisms for early  prevention of backsliding from democracy

ArmInfo.The member of the RA NA delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe  (PACE) Vladimir Vardanyan took part in the work of the Second part of the Annual (Spring) Session. 

As the press service of the Armenian Parliament reports, the MP noted  in his speech:

"Thank you, Mister Chair,

Honorable colleagues,

This year we are celebrating the 75th anniversary of the  Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the very  existence of which crucially ameliorated the democratic environment  of our continent.

The very notion of "Europe" is considered as a pattern of quality in  all dimensions, including quality of life, quality of environment,  quality of security, and for sure quality of democracy.

The privilege of being a member of the Council of Europe is an  indication of high-quality democracy, full respect towards human  rights and the rule of law. Meanwhile this privilege shouldn't be  considered as something given for granted, and each member should  work hard on a daily basis to keep the level of democracy  corresponding to our core values.

Democracy is a phenomenon which always pays challenges, especially  today when we are witnessing wars, aggressions, disturbances, crises  and instabilities all in and around Europe.

Here, in the Council of Europe, we should act with the understanding  that democratic peace is the condition sine qua non for the building  and maintaining of a democratic society based on the rule of law.

The democratic peace is also imperative for the better protection of  human rights without any discrimination.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're living in the era of significant  technological progress. The digital era drastically changed our life,  opening new prospects and opportunities, but simultaneously bringing  new challenges, threats and shortcomings.  We cannot and we should  not reverse technological progress, but we have a common obligation  to force technological developments to serve the promotion of  democracy and therefore our mission is to provide democratic  international legal background for regulation of technological  developments, including development of artificial intelligence  technologies.

Dear colleagues, during the last 75 years we have developed various  successful models, models of democracy based on our core values.  Nevertheless, we cannot deny the issue of backsliding of democracy in  different member states.  Democratic backsliding is an alarming issue  for our organization that we shouldn't underestimate its impact  towards all of us.  We should confront it actively and adopt a  value-based rather than real-politic approach towards the democratic  backsliding, treating equally all the countries backsliding from  democracy.

Ladies and gentlemen, the aim of our organization is to promote  building the real democracy, but not artificial, fake, nominal, or  the other substitutes which used democracy labelled to hide  autocratic regimes and their wrongdoings.  Hence, our role is to  develop real mechanisms for the early prevention of the democratic  backsliding and promotion of the real democracies all around Europe.   Thank you."