Oleg Posternak, political analyst,
director of the Center for Political Intelligence (Kiev, Ukraine)
The Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, whose party “Civil Contract” won the parliamentary elections on Sunday, citing his recent telephone conversation with European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen, said on June 7, 2026, that the European Union (EU) has become a new export destination for Armenian goods.
50 million euros in compensation for Armenia
Ursula von der Leyen conveyed very important information: agricultural products from Armenia will be exported to the EU without customs duties, that is, within the framework of a free customs regime,“ Pashinyan announced.
On May 20, on the eve of the parliamentary elections in Armenia, Russia began to introduce restrictions on imports from this republic on a number of goods, including alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, vegetables, green spices, fruits, as well as fish and flowers. Moscow explained these measures with “sanitary violations“, but in practice they look like an instrument of economic pressure against the backdrop of the growing rapprochement between Yerevan and the EU.
“By introducing import restrictions on Armenian products, Moscow is using economic relations as a weapon of political pressure“, said Ursula von der Leyen on June 5 during the aforementioned conversation with Pashinyan: “That is why Europe firmly supports Armenia.“
The head of the EC also promised to provide immediate financial assistance to Armenia in the amount of over 50 million euros as compensation for the suspended exports to the Russian Federation.
Have the EU's preferences for Ukraine ended?
It is striking that the EU, citing the need to help Armenia counter the pressure from Moscow's side is ready to grant Yerevan new trade preferences. At the same time, the EU is taking away similar benefits from Ukraine - a country that has been resisting the Kremlin's military aggression since 2022, at the cost of huge sacrifices.
The duty-free access regime for Ukrainian goods to the EU market ceased to operate on June 5, 2025. The very next day, the EU restored duties and quotas for a number of Ukrainian agricultural goods. Although no official explanation is given anywhere, the pressure from Eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, which in 2023 campaigned against the supply of Ukrainian grain to EU markets, had its effect in Brussels.
The very promise of von der Leyen, given to Pashinyan, for duty-free access for Armenia to the EU market seems institutionally dubious and goes beyond the usual logic of decision-making in the EU. Such measures cannot be adopted during a telephone conversation and do not fall within the personal competence of the President of the European Commission.
Changing the customs regime, granting new tariff concessions or duty-free access requires mandatory legal formalization in the Council of the EU and the European Parliament (EP). This directly follows from the rules for forming the EU's trade policy, set out on the official website of the EC.
In the case of Armenia, this is particularly important, as Armenia was excluded from the EU's system of trade preferences (GSP/GSP+) as of 1 January 2022, because it no longer met the criteria for a beneficiary country. The impression is created that Ursula von der Leyen is effectively single-handedly making decisions on behalf of the entire EU in favor of Armenia, replacing its institutions and established procedures with herself.
The EU and the pro-Armenian position
Ursula von der Leyen's policy towards the South Caucasus increasingly looks not like a balanced approach by the EU, but like a politically engaged and clearly pro-Armenian line. In 2020-2023, for example, Azerbaijan ended the 30-year Armenian occupation of Karabakh and the surrounding areas. In doing so, Baku restored its sovereignty over its internationally recognized territories in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884, which demanded the withdrawal of Armenian forces from there.
However, von der Leyen and other European politicians, including then-EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, did not support Azerbaijan. On the contrary, they publicly condemned Baku's actions and announced an "expansion of support" for Armenia.
At the same time, Ursula von der Leyen did not even mention the implemented UN Security Council resolutions, while in relation to other conflicts she regularly refers to UN decisions and insists on their full implementation. On May 2, 2024 in Beirut, speaking about the situation in southern Lebanon and the tension on the Lebanese-Israeli border, she called on all parties to fully implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
It is quite likely that the official EU position was imposed on the European Commission by French President Emmanuel Macron - Paris has been Armenia's main "international lawyer" for decades. The footage from Yerevan with the lavish welcome of Macron during the May summits of the European Political Community and the EU-Armenia speaks for itself: Armenians consider France a key partner of the West and it is she who is the main driver of the republic's European integration.
In any case, such a selective approach once again demonstrates that for Ursula von der Leyen, international law is important only when it coincides with her political line. Or with the line of her mentors - she appeared in politics as the Minister of Defense in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was considered the informal leader of the EU. Today, Macron is considered such a leader in the EU, and he, as everyone knows, plays in the same jazz band with Pashinyan.
Therefore, regardless of whether it is sincere or dictated by the political situation, the openly pro-Armenian course of the European Commission's chief commissioner undermines the authority of the EU. Mrs von der Leyen's policy of granting electoral preferences to Eastern European countries calls into question Brussels' ability to act as an impartial defender of legal principles that are the same for all partners.