Referendum on Armenia’s accession to EU would have been failure, political scientist says

Speaking with Alpha News, political scientist Dmitry Rodionov commented on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that there is no need to hold a referendum on Armenia’s accession to the EU.

“It is absolutely obvious to any more or less sane person that no one will accept Armenia into the EU. Of course, neither Ukraine nor Moldova nor Georgia will be accepted there, but at least they were given candidate status. No one plans to give Armenia even this status, although we know that you can sit idly with candidate status for decades.

As for the so-called European aspirations of the Armenian people, which Pashinyan speaks about, it is obvious that these European aspirations exist only in his head. Even if such an idea were put to a referendum, it would have been an absolute failure. If the EU wanted to accept Armenia, they would not hold a referendum because it would show the lack of desire of the Armenian people to join the EU,” Rodionov said.

According to the expert, all of Pashinyan’s talk about potential European integration is an attempt to distract attention from what is happening in the country.

“It seems to me that all this talk from Pashinyan about potential European integration is an attempt to distract attention from what is happening in the country, from the protests that are happening now. No one promised to take Armenia into the EU; no European official even raised this topic.

The Armenian authorities need to somehow distract the public’s attention from all the negativity that is happening in the country. For this purpose, they are bringing up this topic for discussion. No one was planning to hold this referendum in principle because, firstly, it would reveal rather weak support. I am almost 100% sure of this.

Secondly, indeed, one can imagine another situation where a certain number of people would vote for joining the European Union in this referendum, but the question is what Pashinyan will tell these people,” Rodionov concluded.