The EU calls its new 64-page agenda with Armenia a “strategic partnership.” In practice, it reads like a political time capsule, one that drags the region back into the pre-2020 mindset and recycles narratives already settled on the ground. After the Washington D.C. Summit and the initialing of the Azerbaijan–Armenia peace agreement, Brussels had an opportunity to solidify progress. Instead, the EU chose to anchor Armenia’s political comfort zone while sidelining the core realities that define today’s South Caucasus.

The “Strategic Agenda for EU–Armenia Partnership,” unveiled after the 6th EU–Armenia Council meeting on December 2, 2025, is extensive and ambitious. The document outlines Yerevan’s vision of political reforms, economic development, institutional capacity-building, and other priorities it seeks to advance with EU support over the next seven years.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry sharply reacted to the newly signed EU–Armenia Strategic Agenda, stating that several provisions “distort the realities of the post-conflict period and run counter to the overall peace agenda.” This official assessment sets the tone for a wider concern: the document not only misrepresents the dynamics after 2020 but also embeds political narratives that undermine the fragile progress reached since the Washington D.C. summit.

Yet the agenda is notable not only for what it contains, but also for what it omits.

Despite its length, the paper includes no reference to CEPA , the anticipated upgraded trade agreement, nor any discussion of Armenia’s potential accession to the European Union. Instead, it........

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