The Role of Symbolism in Pursuing Accession: Armenia’s Pursuit of EU Membership
The Armenian National Assembly has passed a bill legally enshrining the pursuit of EU membership. Following the resolution on Article 49 by the European Parliament, a second reading has formalised Armenia’s desire to pursue stronger European relations (Lazarian, 2025). With close political and economic ties to the Kremlin, this manoeuvre could risk future economic retaliation. However, the benefits of EU membership appear to have offered a sufficient incentive to expand existing trade relations. Due to the length of the accession process, symbolism plays an important role in future relations because it demonstrates commitment to building long-lasting ties. Armenia’s decision to receive representatives from the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (parliament.am, 2025) acts as a critical juncture in establishing a sense of belonging to the European Union, and also acts as a form of criticism towards Russia.
Accession Challenges
The accession process is labelled as “long and winding (and potentially fruitless)” (Körömi, 2025). This is partially because the quality of institutions required to implement EU law often exceeds the existing frameworks in accession countries. However, an underappreciated challenge is the diplomatic exercise of getting all 27 states to approve the start of the membership process. This task can be immensely difficult. North Macedonian accession started in 2000 with negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP). However, candidacy only began in 2022. This is because there were limitations established by internal issues of incompatibility highlighted in the annual SAP report, but North Macedonia also faced greater challenges around diplomatic tensions and internal EU disagreements hindering the process. This included a Greek veto (resolved by the Prespa Agreement), a French veto over accession rules, and a Bulgarian veto over the Friendship Treaty. The process has now spanned 25 years due to diplomatic tensions, in spite of overwhelming support for EU membership, with over half of those polled suggesting that they’d vote for membership in a referendum since 2014 (Damianovski, 2023, p.13). With Armenia facing challenges with electoral legislation, corruption, conflict with Azerbaijan, and reforms in the justice sector (European Commission, 2025), there are similar structural changes required in order to even start the accession process. Nonetheless, they are better positioned because they have begun to foster symbolic relations with key countries such as Sweden and France early on in the process, potentially reducing the role of veto in the future.
The structural challenges will be difficult for Armenia to overcome. Comparing regional players and their WGI indicators highlights a striking resemblance between Armenia and Moldova in measures of corruption, rule of law, and instability. After ten years of an Association Agreement, Moldova continues to require structural reforms to make any tangible progress as a candidate country, but faces little opposition from member states. Much like Armenia, Russian interference plays a significant role in their relations with Europe, and both have taken steps towards the EU following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both countries have also codified accession as a policy, with a referendum in Moldova hosted on the 20th October 2024. We might therefore expect to see a similar timeframe of ten years for Armenia to make progress. However, the fostering of symbolic relations puts moral pressure on Europe to support Armenia.
Pivoting from The Eurasian Economic Union
The symbolism of European relations and pursuing accession might also be described as a statement of Armenia moving away from Russian dependency. Armenia’s decision to join the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2014 is hotly contested because of the drafting of an Association Agreement (AA) with the EU. One suggestion for this pivot is that Armenia suffered from “regional vulnerability” (Delcour and Wolczuk, 2015, p.505). Overdependence on Russia for trade and security has created a particular sensitivity to regional shocks. Threats have emerged from Azerbaijan, with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict causing instability and security risks in the region. Russia’s concessions on the territory may have destabilised the relationship between the two nations (Atasuntsev, 2023).
Economic issues have also arisen with the EAEU. Armenia has historically been sensitive to the Russian economy and the 2014 decline in international oil prices. Concerns around gas supplies, as well as railways and mobile networks owned by Russian organisations, may have influenced decisions to join the Union (Poghosyan, 2025). By continuing to foster relations with Russia, Armenia was guaranteed supplies of gas and infrastructure but lost out on AA benefits facilitating trade with Europe, which may have “significantly slowed economic progress” (Ter-Matevosyan et al., 2017, p.355). These shortcomings justify such seismic symbolic shifts in partnerships.
Incentive-Based Accession
Armenia may also be developing new symbolic relations with European countries to take advantage of an EU accession model that is built on incentives. First, candidacy offers the chance to diversify economic partnerships. The EU is the second largest exporter, with 13% of Armenia’s total trade in 2023 (Akhvlediani, 2024). By strengthening relations with a bloc of countries, there is greater opportunity for the Armenian economy to flourish, and for migrant routes to open up, diversifying the export market. This undermines dependency on Russia and allows the country to become more prosperous. Second, various financial aid packages exist from the European Union throughout the entirety of the accession timeline. The Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) is the most notable tool, which could help finance structural change. In the long run, eventual membership would likely put Armenia in receipt of a portion of the Cohesion Fund, making it a net recipient of EU funds. These incentives create a positive image for pursuit of accession. However, retaliation from Russia adds geopolitical risk to these symbolic gestures.
Summary
Armenia’s pursuit of EU accession is built on symbolism. It mirrors the Moldovan referendum in its ability to bind policy into law and highlights geopolitical favouring of Europe over Russia. From a pragmatic standpoint, instability and corruption remain serious challenges, but diversification of trade routes would be beneficial to Armenia. However, the use of symbolic relations is significant because it makes the path to accession easier in the long-run and simultaneously creates vulnerability with Russia, which could take actions to retaliate. Furthermore, it offers indirect criticism of the Russian regime and its failure to provide security guarantees, due to its focus on the conflict in Ukraine.
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