Armenia joins the states dreaming of joining the European Union. Yerevan’s government has approved a bill calling for the country, once part of the Soviet Union, to launch a bid to join the bloc. In recent years the nation has deepened ties with the West at the expense of traditionally close relations with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, accused of failing to defend it from long-time rival Azerbaijan. The bill was drafted following a successful petition.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stressed to the cabinet that the public should not expect quick accession and that in any case it would require approval by referendum. “At this stage, before deciding whether to hold a referendum, we need to draw up a roadmap and discuss it with the European Union,” underlined the head of government. Parliament is expected to consider the bill by the end of the month.
Moscow’s reaction
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that the nation cannot join the EU while remaining a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, a trading bloc of some post-Soviet countries. This initiative is “a sovereign right” of Armenia, the spokesperson said, adding however that “it is simply impossible to hypothetically be a member” of both the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union led by Moscow.
The Azerbaijan problem
Any path to membership will not be easy. The mountainous, landlocked country of 2.7 million inhabitants does not border the Union and has been in conflict with Azerbaijan, one of the main gas suppliers of European states, since the late 1980s.
In 2023, Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive to regain control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region that has been run for more than three decades by its ethnic Armenian majority with support from Yerevan, forcing its population to leave away. This week, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Armenia posed a “fascist” threat that needed to be destroyed, in what Yerevan said could be a prelude to a new conflict.
Not the promo ex-Soviet country
Armenia would not be the first former Soviet country to join the bloc: three states that were once part of the USSR are already part of it: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
