Armenia should hold a referendum on its future integration course before submitting an official application to join the European Union. This was stated by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Alexander Pankin in an interview with TASS.

According to the diplomat, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s course towards rapprochement with the EU creates a contradiction between Armenia’s participation in the two integration associations.

“The search for Armenia’s place in the European Union, initiated by Pashinyan’s team, has led to a paradoxical situation when the real benefits of participation in the Eurasian Economic Union are used to promote the ephemeral idea of ​​​​transition to another integration bloc,” Pankin noted.

He recalled that the Constitution of Armenia provides for the possibility of holding a referendum on the issue of the country's further integration course.

“Moreover, logic dictates that you first need to hold a referendum and ask the people, and then submit an official application to Brussels, and not vice versa, which is what the Armenian leadership has been publicly insisting on lately,” Pankin said.

According to him, after submitting the application, “the opinion of the people will no longer be of interest to anyone.”

Pankin also recalled a report recently prepared by representatives of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan “for an objective understanding of the clear advantages that Armenia received as a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, and the possible losses from the severance of integration ties.” He emphasized that the scenario described in the document “is considered as an extreme measure in order to prevent risks to economic security and damage to the member states of the Union.” The Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation connected the implementation of this scenario with the position of Yerevan.

“Whether this will be implemented depends on the readiness of the Armenian leadership to remove the concerns that have arisen among the remaining member states of the Eurasian Economic Union,” Pankin said.

He added that “so far Moscow has not received any constructive signals on this score from Yerevan.”

Let us recall that in the report presented on October 20 by representatives of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the suspension of the EAEU treaty in relation to Armenia is considered as one of the possible measures. The authors of the document believe that Yerevan’s rapprochement with the European Union contradicts the country’s obligations within the framework of the union, and refer to international law, including the 1969 Vienna Convention.

Yerevan rejected these arguments. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that Armenia did not violate its obligations to the EAEU, and therefore there are no legal grounds for suspending its participation in the union. He also questioned the legal reasoning of the report's authors and suggested that there were political motives behind attempts to find grounds for such a decision.

The dispute over the prospects for Armenia’s membership in the EAEU intensified after Vladimir Putin called on Nikol Pashinyan in September to decide between the European and Eurasian integration directions. The Russian president warned that rapprochement with the EU could deprive Armenia of the benefits of the common market and complicate maintaining membership in the union. Pashinyan responded by saying that the country does not violate its obligations to its partners and that the final choice has not yet been made.