Approximately 51,000 Armenian citizens signed a petition in favor of launching the EU accession process. The threshold to initiate a legislative process is 50,000 signatures. Public support for joining the EU is at 58%, according to a poll from September 2024.
After its session, the government provided a positive statement on the draft and recommended to revise its structure based on the requirements of the normative legislative acts. On February 12, 2025, the National Assembly passed the law in the first reading with 63 votes in favor and 7 against. However, opposition parties voted against the bill, arguing the text did not meet the criteria of a legal act, and mentioning possible negative geopolitical consequences of such legislation in current turbulent conditions. They stated that a law, as a normative legal act, must establish binding rules of conduct for legal entities. In contrast, the submitted draft lacked a concrete structure, did not define specific rights or responsibilities, and provided no enforcement mechanisms, thus qualifying it as a declaration, rather than a law. The Expert and Analytical Department of the National Assembly in its statement also mentioned that the draft law contained regulations that may be problematic from the perspective of legal certainty and compliance with the procedures and requirements established by legislation. Arman Yeghoyan, Chairman of the Standing Committee on European Integration, clarified that the draft law was adopted because there is no existing legal mechanism to transform such a draft law into a statement.
It is important to note that this initiative does not constitute an official EU membership application. Instead, it serves as a political message expressing Armenia’s intention to move toward European integration. Additionally, this marks a historic precedent as the first citizen-initiated proposal that passed the first reading in the parliament.