"Pashinyan is building an authoritarian regime” and is not saving the Georgian Dream

Speaking at the European Parliament on March 11, Nikol Pashinyan said, in particular:

“I must say frankly, however, that the biggest problem on the path of Armenia’s integration into the EU at the moment is the frozen state of the political dialogue between the European Union and Georgia. Georgia is a path for us to the European Union, and we adopted the law on the launch of the process of Armenia’s accession to the European Union after Georgia received the status of a candidate for EU membership. This made Armenia’s EU membership prospect tangible, and it is our expectation and request that the European Union-Georgia constructive process should develop. This is important for Armenia, just as important as for Georgia.”

Gela Vasadze noted that “Georgia’s expert community is discussing Nikol Pashinyan’s address to the European Parliament with great enthusiasm.”

“There are two interpretations. The first is that Pashinyan needs this because without Georgia Armenia cannot become part of the EU. The second is that Pashinyan has become a lobbyist for the Georgian Dream, thereby betraying democratic ideals. 

First of all, we are not talking about Armenia becoming a member of the EU. We are talking about a format of relations with the European Union in which the country receives significant financial and political dividends. Does Pashinyan need Georgia for this? No, he does not. For full EU membership, Armenia, like Georgia, would need Turkey to be part of the EU, in addition to a thousand other factors. It is simply a matter of geography. At the same time, given Armenians’ image as historical victims, Europe could theoretically make an exception to the usual rules. A pro-Western Armenia is the dream of any politician from the Benelux countries,” Vasadze noted. 

“Now, regarding the ‘betrayal of democracy.’ This is a strange claim. Pashinyan has never been and cannot be, a democrat in the liberal European sense. He is building a fairly tough authoritarian regime in Armenia. And not because he is bad, but because otherwise, fully fledged nation-states cannot be built. Pashinyan’s authoritarianism is of the modernizing type, unlike the model that prevailed in Armenia before him, which merely preserved the Soviet legacy. Pashinyan is not saving the Georgian Dream or betraying democracy. He is simply acting as a rational politician who is trying to solve his country’s problems – and at the same time earning himself a few extra points in Brussels and across the South Caucasus,” the political analyst concluded.