The Past daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes as follows,  in particular: A few days ago, RA Minister of Internal Affairs Arpine Sargsyan had met with EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos.

Among other matters, they discussed the “dynamic course” of the EU visa liberalization process [with Armenia]. This phrase is no longer new; it is regularly brought up after meetings between Armenia’s officials and various EU representatives.

In parallel with this, [Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinyan and the Minister of Economy [Gevorg Papoyan] were enthusiastically announcing that a Hungarian airline would “base” [its operations] in Armenia. Also, they were considering it an "unprecedented" success that that the people of Armenia could travel [to Europe] cheaply and without obstacles — well, roughly, to "have a coffee in Rome."

However, while the ears of Armenia’s public are being “soothed” by such wording, it is becoming increasingly difficult [for them] to obtain a Schengen visa.

Sorry, it doesn't even get to that point, even "taking a day (hour)" [for EU visa application] has become impossible [in Armenia]. In particular, for example the embassies of Italy, France, and Germany have delegated this function to Tlscontact. However, the process has not become easier — it has become nearly impossible to apply independently.

Understandably, the embassies’ “reception capacity” is not unlimited. As a result, so-called “day opens” daily. (…).

(…).

In addition, we examined several [online] groups where people discuss this topic, and it turned out that most complaints are the same. Here as well people write that, in practice, an individual [Armenian] citizen cannot sign up [for an EU visa application].

Instead, [Armenia’s] social media is flooded with advertisements from organizations offering visa assistance services — some of which even give a "day (hour) sign-up" guarantee—attention…with a 100 percent [success rate]. Prices for simply “getting a day (hour)” range from 40,000 to 80,000 drams. How these organizations manage to “sign up” is another matter entirely.

People familiar with the domain note that this has become a major business source [in Armenia], and a person can no longer sign up independently to submit the [respective] documents.

As a result, all this contributes to the formation of extremely negative public attitudes [in Armenia] not only toward the embassies of EU member states, but also toward the countries themselves.