Pashinyan,EU and referendum that won't happen - ANALYSIS

Armenia and the European Union are a strange and irrational combination in themselves.  When there is talk of joining the EU in Yerevan, there is a feeling that someone is breeding someone.

Because Armenia does not meet the criteria of the European Union (from whatever angle you look at it), and the European Union cannot really need such a problematic ally. That is, some kind of game with certain stakes is being played on both sides. The statement made by Nikol Pashinyan the day before further confirmed us in this thought.

Armenia is ready to be closer to the EU as much as the EU deems it possible, Pashinyan said during the Armenian Democratic Forum.

A very strange statement. It means that Yerevan is ready for anything and agrees to be anything for Europe, as long as they pay. I remembered a dialogue from a very good American movie: "If you want a guy, I'll be your guy, if you want a girl, I'll be your girl. I can be anything you want! - Really? - Of course! And all this for the ridiculous price of two hundred dollars!"

Roughly, but the quote describes the situation very well. And this is a big problem for Armenia. She is always in search of a new guardian and is always ready for anything. As long as they pay. At one time, she received Karabakh and seven districts as payment for "services", and for many years she was provided almost free of charge with weapons and other basic necessities, so to speak. 

The fact that she was unable to manage all this is no longer the fault of the guardian. The guardian tried in good faith. There are ladies who, no matter how you dress them, you can't see anything on them - neither their faces nor their figures.

In principle, it is clear why Pashinyan expressed himself in this way. He tried to avoid a direct answer to the question in an original way: is Armenia going to Europe or not? He explained it in a very peculiar way too. "I'm sorry, if I thought that the people of Armenia did not support this idea, I would not have made such a statement, or if I had made such a statement under the conditions that the people of Armenia did not support this idea, I would not have been Prime Minister of Armenia, at least after this statement," - He said.

Hardly anyone understood anything from this statement. The Armenian prime Minister is a great original and when he needs to get away from a direct answer, he remembers that there are a hundred thousand words in the Armenian language.  

Today, Armenia promises Europe to be whatever the new patrons wish. Even a guy, even a girl. And Europe, it seems, does not intend to integrate Armenians in an accelerated manner, as they once found themselves in the CSTO and the EAEU. Why? Because unlike Russia, Europe does not need Armenia. Absolutely. The West has not yet decided how much and with what it is ready to pay Yerevan for loyalty. The processes that began violently, when Armenians already saw Yerevan as a suburb of Paris, suddenly stopped. Something went wrong as expected. 

The price offered, apparently, was not what the Armenian side had hoped for. More precisely, the new patrons were not ready to give it, or were not even going to do so. With all the seemingly stormy and large-scale support from the West that Armenia had, September 2023 happened, and Azerbaijan, as they say, "did not arrive" for this. One hundred thousand Karabakh tribesmen moved to Armenia, and no promised and calculated sanctions and other punitive measures against Baku followed. It seems that it was then that the sky stopped being flowery for the Armenian side.

In May, during a discussion at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia is ready to join the European Union by the end of 2024. It was black humor. It is as gloomy as Armenia's readiness to sign a peace treaty before the end of summer. Pashinyan has already realized that Europe does not need his country and it will not tear its vest to face Russia on the Armenian front as well. The only thing Armenia is counting on is funds from the European Peace Fund. Pashinyan also talked about this in Copenhagen. That is, it's about money again. Money, money again.
In March, the Armenian media wrote that a new document on cooperation with the EU is being developed, which will be signed in July, and soon the republic expects to be ready for candidacy. In April, at a meeting in Brussels, Armenia was promised only 270 million euros, and even those over four years. The EU also agreed to sell (sell, not donate at the expense of the peace fund) non-lethal weapons for the Armenians.
Armenia is clearly unhappy with this situation. While on a visit to Tallinn, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan blasphemously compared Armenia with Ukraine. By doing this, he wanted to make it clear to the Europeans that his country deserves the same amount of assistance. Why do Ukrainians have billions and the most modern weapons, and Armenians have some pathetic millions, when Armenians, it turns out, have experienced "the same thing"?

In short, Nikol Pashinyan is no longer as optimistic as before. Everything turned out to be much more problematic and made him doubt Europe's desire to get his country at all costs. He doesn't even know if they want Armenia in the European Union anymore. The day before, answering the questions of the participants of the "Armenian Democratic Forum", he admitted that he did not know whether the EU was ready and willing to accept Armenia. At the very least, there are questions related to the elections to the European Parliament, he said. That's the minimum. And what is the maximum? We have already explained this above for him.

The question of the referendum arose in connection with recent statements by the Speaker of the Parliament, Alain Simonyan. He announced that Armenia may hold a referendum on joining the European Union in the near future.

We have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that there is confusion in the ruling circles of Armenia, when the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Although Armenia, as Simonyan says, is "the bearer of the European democratic system," there should be no discrepancies between the legislative and executive authorities on issues such as the country's accession to the EU. The Speaker of the Parliament cannot declare a referendum, looking ahead of the first person of the country, if the issue has not been discussed and a decision has not been made. Judging by Pashinyan's latest statements, there will be no referendum, and he himself is disappointed, although Armenia is still ready to do whatever Europe asks.

Yes, Pashinyan spoke earlier about the referendum, but not about EU membership.  The Prime Minister wanted to blame the issue of the delimitation of the border with Azerbaijan on the "will of the people". He knows what he has to do, but he is afraid of these decisions.

The prime minister hopes that he will be able to refuse Azerbaijan the return of some territories, based on the fact that the Armenian people, they say, are against and they can do nothing. But this is a very frivolous approach and vain hopes. Yerevan has every right to hold a plebiscite on joining the European Union, but delimitation issues are not put to referendums. In any case, he will have to make decisions within internationally recognized borders, whether his people agree with this or not.

All these are such elementary truths that it is somehow even inconvenient to remind them once again. I would like to hope that Yerevan has already begun to realize today that it has wasted precious time. A country that is tightly occupied with groundless hopes has not made a single step forward. Four whole years have been wasted, and Armenia is back in the same broken trough.