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April 4 (Reuters) - Armenia’s president on Friday signed into law a bill that sets a legal foundation for the South Caucasus country to move towards joining the European Union as it moves to diversify its international ties beyond traditional partner Russia.
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Though Armenia has developed warm relations with the EU, joining will not be easy.
The landlocked, mountainous country of 2.7 million people shares no border with the EU, and its bitter rival Azerbaijan is a major gas supplier to EU countries.
They are literally surrounded by countries that are strongly against new EU/NATO country in the region, have much stronger armies, are not shy to use those and can’t be pushed politically or economically.
Before this whole euro integration process started they had good relations with half of these countries who also are still their main economic partners. The other half thinks Armenia shouldn’t exist and are actively working in that direction.
So I don’t think there’s that level of delusion possible for Pashinyan to honestly think that is good and realistic move, he’s probably being paid for this.
Who would pay him? I always thought they were in a similar position as Georgia, would you say that is a bad assumption? An
They are definitely in very different positions.
The only quarrel Georgia has is with Russia and Abhazia and it’s more a story of the past by now. It has access to the Black Sea though so it’s an important asset to counter Russia(hence 2008 war).
Now Armenia has neighbours to the west(Turkiye - a NATO country) and to the east(Azerbaijan - Turkey’s lesser ally) who literally want them gone(strategically, historically, culturally, religiously). They had friendly relations with Iran to the south and Russia to the north(they don’t like Georgia much, but are mostly indifferent to each other) both of whom opposed Turkey-Azerbaijan’s plan for Azerbaijan to annex southern part of Armenia.
So for like a decade now Armenia’s politics was to damage relations with their “friends”, lose territories and people to Azerbaijan(with help from Turkiye) while simultaneously flirting with EU/NATO even attending NATO military exercises which is hilarious in it’s own way, imagine Poland in joint military exercises with Italy against Soviets and British in 1939.
There’s no way EU or NATO will accept Armenia as their member. But even if it was possible there’s no way any of the 4 countries surrounding Armenia will accept it. All four despite having very different views on the future of the region will sooner destroy Armenia than allow EU/NATO expand there. And it’s not like Armenia has 20 years to wait for the membership like Turkiye does, their last war was 2 years ago, the next one is pending.
I know Hanlon’s Razor but I think there is a limit to stupidity where we should accept the reason for their actions is malicious intent.
Thanks. I can imagine Azerbeidzjan not wanting Armenia to join EU or NATO and why Turkey would be on the side of Azerbeidzjan. Also understand why Iran wouldn’t like this. But you say all four of the neighbouring countries are against, including Georgia?
By all four I meant Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Iran and Russia. Georgia probably has no agency(or power) in this question. I think Russia might be okay with EU membership with guarantees that it will be just EU, not NATO.
As for Turkiye it’s more than just siding with Azerbaijan, look at the map of the empire Erdogan is building. There’s a bit of gray land between Turkiye itself and other members, they really need green there. There’s also the fact that another NATO country in the region will make Turkey’s NATO membership less important.
Thanks for clarifying. Would you say that despite Georgia and Armenia being in a different position, they are together in the same boat so to speak?
No, Armenia needs to fight for it’s survival and right now they are fighting in the opposite direction.
Georgia will only have problems if they decide to join NATO.
They are similar in that they are much weaker than their neighbours both economically and militarily.
Economy is another aspect why this Armenian EU mania is ridiculous when more than 30% of both their imports and exports are with Russia(and growing) while the whole Europe is less than 10%.
Georgia is more diverse with their trade partners though they also export two times less per capita compared to Armenia(might be the result of their pro-West politics).
Thanks, learned a lot.
