EAEU is leaving Armenia: Pashinyan’s strategic goal

History and geography are forces that are almost impossible to reverse. Over the years, the Armenian political discourse has been dominated by the fair view that the South Caucasus region is primarily a battleground between Russia and Turkey. For Armenia, this meant that the alternative to a sovereign strategic partnership with Russia was absorption by Turkey. In other words, Yerevan was faced with a dilemma: either Russia or Turkey. Since 2018 (if not earlier), Armenia is being put in a situation where it has no choice but to integrate into the Turkic world.

Last week, reports emerged that Prime Minister Pashinyan had ordered the creation of a new department within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: the Department of European Integration. The corresponding decree signed by Pashinyan states that this department is now the “main structural unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan commented on this decision, stating that there is a department for European integration, but there is no actual European integration.

You do not need insider information to understand that the department’s main goal is not European integration, but rather the development of mechanisms to disengage from the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). There have been repeated statements from Russia claiming that it is technically impossible to be a member of both the EU and the EAEU simultaneously, and that there are already discrepancies in Armenian legislation with the norms of the Eurasian Union due to the country’s attempt to align with European standards, and that changes are currently being made to the structure of the Armenian government.

Robert Kocharyan is right in his assessment: there is no European integration, but there is a process of imitation, which, however, makes Armenia and the EAEU incompatible. Apparently, Pashinyan wants not only to be sanctioned by the EAEU for violating the norms of the integration association, but also to be expelled from the Union, so that he can claim, similar to the CSTO, that “we didn’t leave the EAEU; the EAEU left Armenia.”

In the end, we will have a situation where economic ties with Russia will be severed, there will be no alternatives to the Turkish market and goods, and the result of “European integration” will be a full dissolution into the Turkic world. However, Pashinyan plans to discuss this after the elections, if he is re-elected.

Think about it…