Asbarez.com, the Glendale California based bilingual newspaper (Armenian and English) reported that Armenian “Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government officially announced that it will back a bid for Armenia’s membership in the European Union” (EU) Asbarez added:
“The government on Thursday essentially backed a bill on the ‘start of a process of Armenia’s accession to the European Union’ drafted by several political and civic groups, which collected around 60,000 signature in support of the measure.
“The EU has expressed strong political support for Armenia’s democracy on various occasions,” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said during a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan. “The EU has expressed its willingness and has in fact been involved in ensuring a security environment around Armenia.”
Mirzoyan also recalled Pashinian’s 2023 statement that Armenia is “ready to be as close to the EU as the EU deems possible.”
A complication is that Armenia is presently a member of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), In reaction to the Armenian announcement, the Russian government responded:
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk reacted swiftly, saying that the Armenian government’s decision signaled Yerevan’s desire to withdraw from the EEU, which Armenia chaired last year.
Commenting on the Armenian government’s decision earlier on Thursday, Overchuk said that the EU and the EAEU are incompatible, in particular, because “both unions assume the absence of customs borders and the free movement of goods, services, capital and workforce,” Interfax reported.
“We view the start of Armenia’s discussion on the bill launching the process of joining the European Union as the commencement of Armenia’s withdrawal from the EAEU,” the Russian government’s press service quoted Overchuk as saying in a statement.
Obviously, this is likely to be a long process, but it is notable that it appears to have begun.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with Unleash Prosperity in Washington and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985), which was a predecessor agency to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.
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