POLITICAL BLOOD SPORT GOES COLLEGIATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 001748 SIPDIS SIPDIS SECSTATE FOR EUR/CARC, EUR/PPD, DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/18/2011 TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM KPAO AM SUBJECT: POLITICAL BLOOD SPORT GOES COLLEGIATE YEREVAN 00001748 001.2 OF 002 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Anthony Godfrey. Reason 1.4(d). ¶1. (U) Summary: The European Academy - a relatively new private college - has found itself at the center of a political skirmish. The Academy's Board of Trustees is chaired by former Parliament Speaker and current political wilderness-dweller Artur Baghdasarian. A recent court case brought against the Academy by the Ministry of Education ruled that the composition of the Board of Trustees should be changed and the State Registry will not confirm the Academy's Rector, Victor Martirosyan. The Academy has appealed to the Appellate Court, which has yet to rule. This may be a case of political payback to Baghdasarian from former Minister of Education and Orinats Yerkir party member Sergo Yeritsian, who now serves as the President's adviser on education issues. End Summary. -------------- EDUCATION AND POLITICS DO NOT MIX -------------- ¶2. (C) The Minister of Education and Science, Levon Mkrtchyan, has taken on the European Regional Educational Academy, both in the press and in the courts. The European Academy is one of four fairly new, large, private universities in Yerevan that enjoy partnerships with foreign universities. Press reports and the Minister's Advisor, Nerses Gevorgyan, state that the European Academy is being singled out because of its leadership; not its academics. The President of the Board of Trustees of the European Academy is none other than Artur Baghdasarian, former Parliament Speaker, ousted from political leadership in May ¶2006. Baghdasarian and his Orinats Yerkir (OY) party left the ruling coalition after a falling out with the dominant coalition partner. OY members also had to resign from their government and other leadership positions, including then Minister of Education Sergo Yeritsian and Director of the National Institute of Education Victor Martirosyan. Yeritsian currently serves as the President's adviser on education issues; the latter, Martirosyan, went on to be named Rector of the European Academy. ¶3. (C) Despite having registration papers signed and sealed from the Ministry of Education and multiple memoranda of understanding of partnership with European universities, the Academy has lately come under intense government scrutiny and criticism. Gevorgyan, the Minister's Advisor, confirmed that this summer the President's Chief of Staff Armen Gevorgyan signed a letter requesting the Minister of Education conduct a comprehensive inspection of the Academy. Ministry of Education officials and the Prime Minister's staff spent weeks inspecting the Academy. According to the Academy Rector, the findings of this inspection were not shared with the Academy administration. Most recently, the Ministry of Education initiated a law suit against the Academy, which according to press reports, was to clarify the basis of the Academy's founding, the legality of the Board of Trustees composition, and the election of current Rector. To be fair, Minister Mkrtchyan has told us directly that he was concerned that the number of degree-issuing, tuition-collection institutions had proliferated to an unreasonable degree under his notoriously corrupt predecessor, Sergo Yeritsian (also a former member of Baghdasarian's ousted OY party.) ¶4. (U) The court ruled against the Academy stating that there 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 -------------- YEREVAN 00001748 002.2 OF 002 ¶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 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