On February 20, the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) marked the first anniversary of its deployment on the Armenian border with Azerbaijan. According to the European Union, its purpose is to aid in the normalization process between Yerevan and Baku and enhance stability in the South Caucasus. Last year, the EUMA was deployed following the end of a shorter-term European Union Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP), which was deployed in October 2022. While Armenia supports the EUMA’s charge, Baku is wary of Brussels’ mediation in the ongoing peace negotiations between both countries. 

Yerevan requested EUMCAP to stabilize the situation on the border that escalated to armed clashes in September 2022. EUMCAP recruited 40 staff members from the 200-strong civilian and unarmed European Union Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM) to support the temporary two-month mission in Armenia. The operation was also funded from the EUMM budget. According to Brussels, the mission was additionally intended to support the border demarcation process and delimitation on both sides. It consisted of 40 unarmed civilian monitors, following an agreement reached at a quadrilateral meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macron, and European Council President Charles Michel at the first-ever European Political Community Summit held in Prague held earlier that same month.

 

The EUMA faces several challenges and controversies, further exacerbated by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijan and others, including Russia and Iran, assert that the European Union is seeking to embed itself further in an already volatile region. Baku argues that Yerevan can use the EUMA to delay the signing of a long-awaited peace agreement. From the outset, Russia saw the deployment as an effort by the European Union to challenge Moscow’s 30-year presence in the country, especially after Yerevan rejected a similar initiative by the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization. “We see this as yet another attempt by the European Union to interfere by any means in the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan [and] to oust our country’s mediation efforts,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

 

The EUMCAP initiative ended on December 19, 2022. The plans were already in motion to replace EUMCAP with the larger and longer-term EUMA. On January 23, 2023, the EU Foreign Affairs Council scheduled the mission’s official deployment on February 20. According to many observers, France pushed strongly for the EUMA’s establishment, a country fast becoming Armenia’s main ally in the region. “Through border monitoring, this mission has really limited the danger of escalation,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told the French Parliament on December 6, 2022. “This presence should continue as long as it is needed. This is our belief. This is also … the desire of the Armenians”.

 

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In the future, if the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization process stalls and/or if EUMA is extended in February 2025, it will be crucial to prevent local political interests and regional geopolitical tensions from undermining the original goal of the deployment: fostering peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Such efforts must also aim to avoid escalating the conflict.

The full analysis is available here. 

On January 18, six years after the street protests that brought him to power in 2018, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan raised the issue of reforming the country’s constitution during a meeting with the Armenian Ministry of Justice. The constitution was originally introduced under Levon Ter-Petrosyan in 1995 and controversially amended under his successors, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. Pashinyan stated that constitutional reforms are needed to make Armenia “more competitive in the new geopolitical environment.” The opposition claims that talk of constitutional reform comes under pressure from Azerbaijan in the stalled peace talks. Earlier, the Armenian premier claimed that constitutional reforms would give Yerevan a more stable position in negotiations with Baku.

Pashinyan’s initial efforts to hold a referendum to amend the constitution in April 2020 were indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the declaration of a state of emergency in Armenia (Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, March 16, 2020). As a result, a crucial amendment to strip constitutional court judges appointed under previous governments passed with a two-thirds majority in the Armenian National Assembly without a popular referendum (JAMnews, June 3, 2020). The opposition charged that the move was unconstitutional as the referendum could have been rescheduled to a later date.

  

The push for extensive constitutional reforms has remained a priority for the current Armenian government. After the canceled referendum, Pashinyan noted that the population did not trust the existing constitution in July 2020. He argued that a new constitution should be drafted and released for public discussion, with a referendum scheduled for the following year (Azatutyun.am, July 5, 2020). Armenia’s defeat in the Second Karabakh War in late 2020, however, postponed the referendum again in favor of snap parliamentary elections (Azatutyun.am, June 24, 2021).

 

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At the heart of the matter is the inclusion of a preamble in successive constitutions directly referring to the 1990 Armenian Declaration of Independence. That document emphasizes the 1989 joint declaration on the “Reunification of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Mountainous Region of Karabakh” (Parliament of the Republic of Armenia, accessed January 24). It also refers to “achieving international recognition of the 1915 genocide in Ottoman Turkey and Western Armenia.”

 

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The extensive reforms to the Armenian Constitution come with key geopolitical implications. On the one hand, removing some of the territorial claims could facilitate real progress in peace talks. On the other hand, potentially doing so at the behest of Baku would do little to infuse public confidence in the new constitution. The reforms that Yerevan does agree on and the way they are implemented will undoubtedly have a significant impact on prospects for peace and stability in the South Caucasus.

The full piece can be read online here.