Armenia's reappointed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that his country's simultaneous membership in the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the European Union (EU) would be impossible, reports infohub.kz.
According to Pashinyan, in 2025 Armenia adopted a law to start the process of joining the EU, with the main goal of "creating an alternative" for the country. He stated this at a meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in Kyrgyzstan.
"We understand that simultaneous membership in the Eurasian Economic Union and the European Union is impossible, but the very fact of adopting this law does not mean that Armenia today has the opportunity to become an EU member. When in the future Armenia is qualitatively ready for EU membership, that also does not mean that our country will automatically become an EU member. For that, the consent of EU member states and the approval of Armenian citizens will still be necessary," Pashinyan said.
He added that it is impossible to put this issue to a vote of Armenian citizens without prior institutional preparatory work. Pashinyan stressed that even after that, it will be necessary to submit an official application to the EU and then obtain candidate status for EU accession.
"Without going through at least a large part of these stages, holding a referendum on this issue would be meaningless and would mean that we expect our citizens to answer a question that simply does not exist at the moment. It would mean that we expect Armenian citizens to choose between two alternatives, one of which does not exist. That would be disrespectful to our people and practically illegitimate. I am grateful to my colleagues for recognizing Armenia's legitimate right to develop relations with various partners and create trade and economic alternatives for its country. Moreover, I consider this approach useful for the EAEU, since the existence of possible alternatives is a factor that will contribute to the development of the EAEU's competitiveness and attractiveness. I think no one will deny that there is work to be done within the EAEU in this regard. We are ready and propose to work on this," Pashinyan concluded.
According to him, Armenia proceeds from the fact that the Eurasian Economic Union should not be seen as a space of restrictions, and the interaction of EAEU members with third partner countries should not be perceived as a zero-sum game.