POLITICAL BLOOD SPORT GOES COLLEGIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 YEREVAN 001745 SIPDIS SIPDIS SECSTATE FOR EUR/CARC, EUR/PPD, DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2011 TAGS: PGOV PHUM AM KDEM KPAO SUBJECT: POLITICAL BLOOD SPORT GOES COLLEGIATE YEREVAN 00001745 001.4 OF 003 -------------- -------------- ZFR ZFR ZFR -------------- -------------- PER DRAFTER, PLEASE ZFR (CANCEL) ALL SECTIONS OF YEREVAN 01745 DTG 210749Z DEC 06. THIS WILL BE SENT UNDER A NEW MRN. -------------- -------------- ZFR ZFR ZFR -------------- -------------- YEREVAN 00001745 002.2 OF 003 was no quorum when the Academy Board met on February 28, 2006 (during this meeting they decided to change the composition of the Board to add two representatives - one from France and one from Germany),in violation of article 24 of the Law on Foundation, with states that foundation board meetings are valid only if there is a quorum. The Court also declared the decision of the Board to name a new Rector also null and void given that the new Board composition was null and void. In effect, the Court has suspended the Board's and Rector's abilities to function. ¶5. (U) Artur Baghdasarian also launched and still chairs the French University in Armenia, which partners with Lyon-3 University in France. However, the French University's rector and vice rector positions are held by French-national administrators, making the French University a more sensitive political target for the government. (COMMENT: Taking on the French University would have more sensitive political and foreign policy reverberations, perhaps seen as a poke in the eye toward France itself, and unthinkable during the "Year of Armenia in France." END COMMENT) -------------- EUROPEAN ACADEMY BACKGROUND -------------- ¶6. (U) The European Academy Fund was established in October 2001 according to article number 123 of the Armenian civil code and by government resolution number 978, which was adopted on the basis of agreement between GOAM and Italian, French, German and Austrian governments. According to the same official documents, the Ministry of Education provided classroom and administrative facilities to the newly established Academy. President Kocharian presided over the academy's grand opening a year later, to much fanfare, with the assembled diplomatic corps looking on. ¶7. (U) Currently the Academy has 1,406 students and signed cooperative agreements with approximately twenty European organizations, the most important partner being the European Union, which has provided more than 1.2 million euro in technical assistance. The Academy has also established a unique partnership with the University of Nebraska and Lakeland College, which provides a joint (distance-learning) masters degree in education administration and business administration respectively. ¶8. (C) COMMENT: While the Ministry of Education may have a legitimate point about needing to contain the proliferation of different, new degree-giving institutions which may be diluting the field and overselling the value of their degrees to their students, such an initiative would never have come from the President's Chief of Staff. Instead, it is likely that this idea was generated by Yeritsian, the President's education advisor, as political payback to the former Speaker following his party's departure from government. Although this could be an unusually thorough preemptive measure, designed to deny Baghdasarian even so meager a political pulpit as the European Academy, it is more likely is YEREVAN 00001745 003.2 OF 003 that this episode is just petty grudge-settling; part of the ritual stripping of the perks and accoutrements of power from the prodigal son and a reminder to other regime allies the political costs of falling out with the President. END COMMENT GODFREY