The government backed a bill on the “start of a process of Armenia's accession to the European Union” drafted by several pro-Western political and civic groups.
Those groups largely loyal to Pashinian collected last year 60,000 signatures in support of their demands for a referendum on joining the EU. Armenian law requires the country’s parliament to formally debate the resulting bill.
“The EU has expressed strong political support for Armenia's democracy on various occasions,” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. “The EU has expressed its willingness and has in fact been involved in ensuring a security environment around Armenia.”
Mirzoyan also recalled Pashinian’s 2023 statement that Armenia is “ready to be as close to the EU as the EU deems possible.”
Pashinian cautioned, for his part, that the referendum should be held only after Yerevan discusses the matter with the EU and the two sides agree a “roadmap” to Armenia’s accession to the 27-nation bloc. No EU member state has voiced support for such a prospect so far.
Pashinian and his entourage have been toying with the idea of a membership bid amid increased tensions with Russia, Armenia’s longtime ally and main trading partner and supplier of vital energy resources.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk said in June that the South Caucasus country will lose tariff-free access to the Russian market and other economic privileges granted by Moscow if its government does seek EU membership. It cannot be simultaneously part of the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), he warned.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made the same point when he swiftly reacted to the Pashinian government’s latest decision. Peskov also stressed that membership in the EEU gives Armenia “very, very positive dividends.”
Russia accounted for around 42 percent of Armenia’s foreign trade in January-October 2024, compared with the EU’s 7.3 percent share in the total. Russia is also Armenia’s principal supplier of natural gas and nuclear fuel. The price of Russian gas for the country has long been set well below international market-based levels.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now a senior security official, reacted more scathingly to the Armenian government’s further drift to the West. He said that after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s latest threats of military action against Armenia, Pashinian may “recall” that his country is also a member of another Russian-led bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
“There is another option in light of the Armenian leaders’ intention to get engaged to the European Union,” Medvedev told the RIA Novosti news agency. “They can contact the EU directly.”
“They [EU] countries like to help candidates for paradise with money and weapons. The European Union has excellent Ukrainian experience behind it,” he added mockingly.