The 9th legislature of the European Parliament officially started its work in July. It is the only supranational parliament in the world that is directly elected, is empowered to regulate the single market, and to distribute public funds to the EU's overall budget. Therefore, the European elections attract a lot of public attention. The results of this year's election sent a clear message that EU voters want change. In order to evaluate the results correctly, it is necessary to consider them from several dimensions. This analysis attempts to study the main trends of the elections and their further impact on EU activities. Full material is only available in Armenian.

On September 6, 2019, the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia published draft laws “On introducing amendments and supplements to the law “On Confiscation of Property of Illegal Origin” and related draft laws. In international experience, confiscation without conviction is an exceptional measure in the fight against particularly dangerous crimes. Despite the fact that from the state’s point of view the confiscation of property of illegal origin, by means of civil proceedings, is an effective and simple way to combat crime, this institute contains the risk of abuse and serious violations of fundamental human rights. This is due to the fact that in the international experience, as a rule, the confiscation is applied in the cases where criminal prosecution is impossible due to person’s death or circumstances caused by person’s guilt that justify such extremely serious interference with human rights and guarantees of criminal proceedings and make it proportional. This analysis presents the proposed regulations of the draft law, as well as provides a comparative analysis of the latter in the light of international experience. Full material is only available in Armenian.

In the present analysis, given the data published by the Statistical Committee of the RA, we study the recent social-economic developments in the economy of the RA. In particular, we consider the cumulative indicator of economic activity of the given month, its sectoral distribution, as well as the dynamics of individual sectors of the economy. We also analyze economic developments in the foreign trade, labour market and fiscal system of the RA. In addition, some aspects of the financial system (inflation, deposits and loans), as well as the behaviour of the exchange rate, are touched upon. Full material is only available in Armenian.

The primary document that defines the medium-term (that is, for the upcoming three years) objectives of the government of the RA is the framework of public medium-term expenditures. This framework allows to manage financial resourses of the public sector in accordance with the medium-term fiscal objectives. It consists of two parts, the first one of which describes the fiscal policy of the government and the second one – the strategy of the spending policy. The framework of medium-term expenditures serves as a basis for developing the draft state budget. The present analysis is aimed at exploring the foregoing framework. Full material is only available in Armenian.

The objective of the present analysis is to assess the execution of the state budget of the RA in the given period. First, we describe the general state of the economy of the RA, namely the driving forces of economic activity, the developments in individual sectors of the economy, the behavior of the components of the demand – consumption and investment – and so on. Afterwards, we analyze the performance of government revenues and expenditures by comparing the actual and planned values of the respective indicators. We conclude the analysis by summarizing the main observations and results. Full material is only available in Armenian․

In March 2019 SIGMA released an analysis, entitled “Baseline Measurement Report: Principles of Public Administration", which analyzed the six key areas of public administration in Armenia with a specific methodology, provided estimates on these areas. The assessments reflected in the report are particularly important in the context of the recent discussions in Armenia, according to which the present authorities have inherited a "failed state system"․ Earlier, SIGMA also prepared reports with similar content on other EU Eastern Partnership countries, in particular on Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. A comparative analysis of reports on Armenia and these countries suggests that in many areas Armenia is at the same level or has advantages over these countries.

The export of goods and services is of paramount importance for every economy. This is why the majority of countries adopt an export-oriented economic policy. In 2019 the RA has experienced a slowdown in the growth rates of the export. Indeed, over January-July of 2019 the exports have increased by 3.0 percent compared with the same period of the previous year, while in 2018 the same indicator amounted to 17.6 percent. To revive foreign trade of the RA, it is necessary to ensure diversification of the structure and directions of the export industry. Full material is only available in Armenian.

On August 9, 2019, the RA Ministry of Justice submitted for public discussion draft laws “On amendments and supplements to the constitutional law “Judicial Code of the Republic of Armenia”, “On amendments and supplements to the constitutional law of the Republic of Armenia “On Constitutional Court” and related draft laws. The draft laws significantly expand the grounds for holding judges of the constitutional court and ordinary court judges accountable for disciplinary violations and termination of their powers, thereby weakening the external independence of the latter. The ministry provides for the introduction of an “early retirement scheme” according to which a resigned judge of the Constitutional court, regardless of the age, can retain his salary at the time of resignation until the end of his term. The ministry justifies the necessity of introducing the institute by the criticized experience of Poland and Hungary, which is presented by the ministry as international experience. Also, the proposed procedure for the election of members of the Commission for the prevention of corruption is extremely worrying. In particular, it is problematic to assign to the Commission functions that involve broad discretion, as well as interference in personal and family life. This analysis concerns a detailed study of the draft laws in the light of the RA Constitution and international experience. Full material is only available in Armenian.

An analysis of international experience shows that foreign funding of public organizations is of particular concern to states. As a result, stricter requirements of transparency and accountability are established in individual countries, taking into account the need to prevent possible cases of money laundering and terrorism, as well as ensure the security of the state and society. The legislation of the Republic of Armenia does not provide special requirements for transparency and accountability of public organizations receiving foreign funding. The analysis presents the international experience of regulating foreign financing of public organizations and foundations, as well as the possibility of introducing special requirements of transparency and accountability in the Republic of Armenia. Full material is only available in Armenian.

From the most of the analysis on this topic, it can be concluded that the non-execution of public capital expenditure leads to economic growth penalty. Therefore, the proper implementation of capital spending should be a positive outcome for the government of each country, and their underperformance is alarming. Given that capital expenditure impacts economic growth in different ways, in this analysis, we applied a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model (DSGE), which describes the whole economy quite well and allows to observe the impact of capital expenditure underperformance on all sectors of the economy. At the core of the analysis was the assumption that capital expenditure was reduced only one year, and in subsequent years, they were restored to a sustainable level. The results of the model used show that the highly conservative government behavior on capital spending is dangerous and in the long- run, it will fine the potential for economic growth. The impact of underperformance of capital expenditure on other macro variables is also assessed, such as private real investments, real wages, employment, real effective exchange rates,