YEREVAN, May 5. /TASS/. Armenia would be glad to be admitted to the European Union, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the first Armenia-EU summit, which was held in Yerevan on May 5, 2026.
Speaking at a press conference following the summit, the Armenian prime minister called the event historic. Pashinyan also recalled that a law on joining the European Union, initiated by civil society, was adopted in Armenia last year.
“I believe this is a good and additional incentive to give new momentum to democratic and institutional reforms in general, so that Armenia can achieve the status of a country meeting European standards as soon as possible. This is our main intermediate goal, since we understand that no country can become a full member of the EU without meeting these standards. If we are admitted as full members of the EU, we will be glad and happy about it. If not, in any case we will find ourselves in a winning position, since the Republic of Armenia will be a country with European standards,” the head of the Armenian government said.
He also acknowledged that the decision to admit a country to the EU is a political one, and that Brussels could at any moment say that the EU no longer wants to expand.
On March 26, 2025, Armenian parliament deputies adopted a law in its second and final reading on launching the process of the republic’s accession to the European Union. Pashinyan noted that this would not automatically start Yerevan’s accession process, since the issue requires a referendum. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, for his part, clarified that the bill was a public initiative that had gathered the necessary number of signatures.
According to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Overchuk, Moscow views these actions as the start of the republic’s withdrawal from the Eurasian Economic Union. In his words, joining the EU is incompatible with a country’s membership in the EAEU.
