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.

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EDUCATION AND POLITICS DO NOT MIX
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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)

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EUROPEAN ACADEMY BACKGROUND
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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