The initiative to start the EU membership process came from civil society, they have submitted a draft a law in this regard, and our government has approved it. There is a high probability that our parliament will approve that law so that we can legally start the process of getting closer to the EU. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this during a panel discussion Thursday on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

 “Why did we [i.e. Armenia] want to be closer to the European Union? Because we are a democracy. When you are a democracy, you want to be closer or in the mainstream of democracy, as otherwise it would be illogical.

And now we are cooperating very closely with the European Union. To be honest, in recent years, tremendous changes and improvements have taken place in our relations with the European Union. For example, we have just started negotiations on the visa liberalization agreement, which has been on our agenda for many years, but we could not even start negotiations. And I hope that we will be able to finish and sign it as soon as possible.

Now Armenia is included in the [EU] European Peace Facility program, which is also very important. We now have a European civilian monitoring mission in our country, which is also very important. We are in the process of implementing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU, and we are working very closely,” the Armenian PM said.

And speaking on Armenia’s economic ties with the EU, Pashinyan noted: “Of course, we want to be closer to the European Union also economically. But on the other hand, we want to be closer to the countries of our region also in terms of economy because, unfortunately, since the beginning of our independence [in 1991], we were in a kind of economic isolation because our borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan have been and are closed, and thus to bring about changes not only in our region, but also in the whole world.”