{"id":415911,"date":"2025-01-10T13:41:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T12:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/10\/armenia-proposta-legge-adesione-ue\/"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:34:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T14:34:47","slug":"armenian-government-wants-to-join-the-european-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/10\/armenian-government-wants-to-join-the-european-union\/","title":{"rendered":"Armenian government wants to join the European Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Yerevan moves an inch closer to Brussels,<\/strong>\u00a0or at least it is trying to. The Armenian government\u00a0approved a bill<\/strong> aimed at applying to join the European Union<\/strong> as soon as possible. The small Caucasian country, traditionally an ally of Moscow<\/strong>, is gradually leaving the Russian orbit to approach Europe. <\/strong>However,\u00a0the road still seems uphill. In the background, as always, is the shadow of the war with neighboring Azerbaijan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The measure approved yesterday<\/a> (Jan. 9) by Armenia’s executive commits the former Soviet republic to\u00a0embark formally on the path to EU membership. It<\/strong>\u00a0will now have to be discussed by the national parliament<\/strong>. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan<\/strong> stressed that the “essence and context of this issue” must be understood, echoing his speech at the European Parliament\u00a0in\u00a0Strasbourg in October 2023, in which he reiterated that “Armenia is ready to join the EU<\/strong>, to align as much as possible.” He nonetheless pointed out that should this process truly begin, it will certainly not be short.<\/p>\n

\"Nikol<\/a>
Armenian premier Nikol Pashinyan at the European Parliament, October 17, 2023 (photo: EP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The government’s initiative follows<\/a>\u00a0last year’s people’s petition<\/strong>, which gathered the 50,000 signatures needed to present the proposal to\u00a0the House.Should the deputies approve the text (the Civil Contract r<\/strong>uling party holds 71 of the 107 seats in the single-chamber legislature), a referendum will follow<\/strong> to allow the electorate to express their view on the issue.<\/p>\n

“If this bill is adopted, we must have a clear plan of action,” the premier said.\u00a0“We should work together with the EU to discuss and develop the roadmap,<\/strong>” he added. The day before the cabinet endorsed the bill, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan<\/strong>\u00a0had said<\/a> that a new partnership with Brussels<\/strong> could be signed in the coming months,\u00a0which could have included\u00a0visa liberalization<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In recent years,\u00a0Yerevan has gradually moved away<\/strong> from Vladimir Putin<\/strong>‘s Russia and closer to the West, intensifying<\/a> the political, economic, and military cooperation with European partners<\/strong>. After Moscow failed to guarantee the terms of a ceasefire\u00a0in 2020<\/strong>,\u00a0which was supposed to prevent Azerbaijan from attacking the self-proclaimed republic of Artsakh<\/strong> in Nagorno-Karabakh (an ethnic Armenian-majority enclave within Azerbaijani borders), Baku invaded the separatist province<\/strong> in September 2023, annexing it.<\/p>\n

\"Pashinyan<\/a>
Former European Council president Charles Michel (left) with Armenian premier\u00a0Nikol Pashinyan (photo: European Union)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, as anticipated by Pashinyan, progressing on the road to EU entry will not be easy<\/strong>. Beyond political proclamations, Yerevan is still heavily dependent on Moscow<\/strong> (which maintains a military base on Armenian territory) at an\u00a0economic, trade, and energy level. In addition, the 27 member states are buyers of natural gas from Baku<\/strong>, which reaches\u00a0continental Europe via the TAP (the last section of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

Just in the past few days,\u00a0the Azerbaijani president called Armenia<\/strong> a “fascist threat,” suggesting that it should be “destroyed.” It was not\u00a0a conciliatory\u00a0statement, which calls\u00a0into question progress (mediated by the EU<\/a>) towards\u00a0a peaceful resolution<\/a>\u00a0of the 30-year conflict between Baku and Yerevan<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin merely noted, through its spokesman Dmitry Peskov<\/strong>, that Armenia is free to decide<\/strong> on its international placement but that it cannot continue to remain a member of the Eurasian Economic Union<\/strong>–the EEU is a trading bloc that brings together Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia–if it joins the 12-star club. Last June, Yerevan announced its intention to leave the CSTO<\/strong>, the Russian-led military alliance (which includes the same EEU members plus Tajikistan), in controversy toward Moscow’s inability to guarantee Armenian security during the Azerbaijani blitzkrieg campaign in the fall of 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The executive led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan approved a bill that parliament in Yerevan must now debate before being submitted to the people via a referendum. However, the international repositioning of Armenia, which depends on Russia and is in eternal conflict with Azerbaijan, may prove more difficult than expected<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":415901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[27627,26847,26848,25836,27475,25803],"class_list":["post-415911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-accession-to-theeu","tag-armenia-and","tag-azerbaigian-en","tag-eu-enlargement-en","tag-nikol-pashinyan-en","tag-russia-in-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415919,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415911\/revisions\/415919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}