News - Newspaper: Rating of pro-Westerners in authorities’ pockets is being raised among Armenia’s public

Hraparak daily of the Republic of Armenia (RA) writes as follows, in part: The matter of Armenia's petition for EU membership is back on the agenda after a break for months, thanks to [PM Nikol] Pashinyan's official oppositionists. Arman Babajanyan, Aram Sargsyan, Tigran Khzmalyan, Hovsep Khurshudyan, and others demand from the authorities to hold a referendum on this matter, so that the people say whether they want Armenia to apply for the EU membership issue or not. "No" in this case is seen as a continuation of the previous—Russian—line of the RA foreign policy. Last week the authorities held a hearing in the NA, and yesterday the RA NA president spoke in Latvia about this, that Armenia shares EU values and wants to be a part of the EU. "I believe that we will have this referendum in the near future, and I am sure that our people will say yes." However, behind the scenes of the authorities, they are almost certain that such a referendum will not take place—this is just a PR action; the [Armenian] authorities will not dare to cross the red lines, being wary of Russia's reaction. And the topic was thrown into the arena with a special calculation to increase the weight of the pro-Westerners in the authorities’ pockets among Armenia’s public, which is what the authorities need, first of all, for the upcoming [parliamentary] elections, so that they have enough votes to support the CC [i.e. the ruling Civil Contract Party] in forming the future parliament in order to come to power. CC knows very well that they don't have 50+1 votes [to come to power on its own again the next time], now they are raising forces controllable for them to form a coalition government with them. By the way, in order to hold a referendum [in Armenia], one must first collect 50 thousand signatures, and then enter the NA. And if the NA refuses, then 300 thousand signatures are needed to hold a referendum.