After a Cabinet meeting on Thursday the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan confirmed that his government has approved to prepare a bill that will mark the beginning of accession to the European Union, according to reports in the local media.
Under Armenian law a petition that garners at least 50,000 signatures must become the subject of a parliamentary debate. The country’s Central Electoral Commission confirmed on Dec. 10 that a petition demanding the country should seek membership of the EU had reached the legal threshold. under which parliament must debate the proposal.
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Pashinyan said that his Cabinet had agreed a course of action to prepare a bill that would launch the process of Armenia’s accession to the EU. However, he underlined the fact that although the bill would be put to parliament for consideration the final decision to join the EU could only be made following a nationwide referendum.
In addition to approving the bill in principle, Pashinyan said his Cabinet has proposed some changes that would better meet legal norms, present the content as definite articles and clarify timeframes for effecting the process.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that cooperation between Armenia and the EU had intensified over recent years, to include support to Yerevan in political, economic, democratic and security sectors.
Armenia and the EU finalized a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2017. The relationship was underlined by the then EU High Representative Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini in June 2019 who pointed out that if Georgia and Turkey acceded to the EU Armenia would have a border with the bloc.
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In March 2024, the European Parliament passed a resolution confirming that Armenia meets the Article 49 requirements of the EU charter and were therefore eligible to apply for EU membership. The article says that candidate states must show respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
Armenia has become ever more “Western looking as relations with Russia have deteriorated because of events such as the 2018 Armenian Revolution, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the September 2022 Armenia–Azerbaijan clashes, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and especially the 2022–2023 Blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh which led to thousands of ethnic Armenians being driven out of the enclave.
The rift was underlined as recently as Dec. 4 when Pashinyan told parliament that Yerevan had passed the “point of no return” regarding its membership of the Moscow led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
His remarks were a response to a statement by Russian President Vladimir Putin that CSTO had been unable to intervene in the 2020 conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh because “it did not occur on Armenian territory.”
Pashinyan said, “With all due respect to the Russian president, this statement highlights the fundamental issues within the CSTO.” He accused the CSTO and, by implication, Putin of failing to act on the assurances it had given Yerevan that it would protect Armenia’s borders which the Kremlin had dismissed as “ambiguous claims relating to undefined boundaries.”
Armenia has frozen its participation in CSTO activities, without formally withdrawing from the organization. It withdrew from joint military exercises in September, pulled out of the CSTO Security Council meeting on Nov. 28 and other meetings since then.
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