The EAEU proposes that Armenia make a choice, and Pashinyan sees it as a "friendly gesture"

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan believes that the call by the leaders of the EAEU countries to hold a referendum in the republic on the country's accession to the European Union is a friendly gesture rather than a demand.

At the EAEU summit held on May 29 in Astana, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan adopted a joint statement indicating that they share the position on the need to hold a nationwide referendum in Armenia on joining the EU or remaining part of the EAEU.

"The leaders' statement records that they support the idea of holding a referendum. This idea, in fact, belongs to us, because it was we who said that at some stage there should be a referendum. And now they have presented their views on the timing, and we also have our own views. I did not perceive this statement as a demand; on the contrary, I perceived it as a friendly gesture," Pashinyan told journalists, Armenian media report.

In his opinion, the leaders of the EAEU countries support and share Armenia's point of view and, in essence, do not object to the deepening of the republic's relations with the European Union, up to the possibility of Armenia adopting an agenda for accession to the Eurasian Union.

In March 2025, Armenia's parliament passed a law on the start of the process of Armenia's accession to the European Union, and in April of the same year it was approved by the republic's president, Vahagn Khachaturyan. Russian President Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with Pashinyan, stated that being in a customs union with both the EU and the EAEU is impossible.