Armenia will submit its application to join the EU by 2028, says Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced on Thursday that his country intends to submit its official application for membership in the European Union in 2027 or 2028. The decision marks Yerevan’s increasingly pronounced shift toward the West and risks intensifying tensions with Russia.

“This process will ultimately lead us, in 2027 or 2028, to officially submitting an application to begin the process of joining the EU as a full member,” Pashinyan said at a press conference. He specified that the process is intended to offer the population an alternative and the opportunity to choose the country’s strategic direction.

For now, Armenia does not intend to withdraw from the Eurasian Economic Union, an organization dominated by Russia. Moscow, however, maintains that simultaneous membership in the bloc and the EU would not be possible and has called for a referendum on Armenia’s foreign policy orientation.

Relations between Yerevan and Moscow deteriorated after Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan and Baku’s recapture of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2023. Armenia has frozen its participation in the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization and declared itself uninterested in the organization.

Despite the political realignment, Russia remains Armenia’s main trading partner and an important market for its exports. Yerevan also depends on Moscow for energy and arms, while numerous Armenian citizens work in Russia.