The CEPA Mirage: How the EU’s Partnership with Armenia Fuels Illusion Over Reform

The Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between the European Union (EU) and Armenia, signed in November 2017 and entering into full force on March 1, 2021, was designed as a comprehensive framework to promote political dialogue, economic integration, rule of law, human rights, and alignment with EU standards across over 30 chapters, without offering full EU membership. It includes provisions for trade liberalization, judicial reforms, anti-corruption measures, and sectoral cooperation in areas like energy, environment, and security, supported by EU funding and technical assistance, such as the €270 million Resilience and Growth Plan for 2024–2027 announced in 2024. In 2025, amid Armenia’s formal pursuit of EU membership—marked by a parliamentary bill passed in February 2025 and signed into law in April 2025—CEPA has been positioned as a stepping stone, with a new EU-Armenia Partnership Agenda politically agreed upon in June 2025 to set more ambitious priorities. However, under a critical examination, CEPA has frequently legitimized superficial reforms in Armenia without enforcing genuine accountability, enabling the government to claim international progress while entrenched structural issues like widespread corruption, judicial politicization, police brutality, and institutional inefficiencies endure. This “reform without real change” dynamic is exacerbated by the EU’s pragmatic geopolitical priorities, which dilute normative enforcement and allow symbolic compliance over substantive transformation.

The Enforcement Delusion: Why CEPA’s Rules Are Designed to Be Broken

CEPA establishes oversight bodies like the Partnership Committee, Partnership Council, and civil society platforms to monitor implementation through annual reports and meetings, with commitments to approximate Armenian laws to EU acquis in areas including public procurement, competition, and intellectual property. It also facilitates incentives like visa liberalization dialogues (launched in 2024) and non-lethal security aid, such as the €10 million European Peace Facility package in January 2024 for Armenia’s armed forces. Yet, the framework’s fundamental weakness lies in its absence of binding enforcement mechanisms, such as automatic sanctions, aid suspensions, or rigorous conditionality for non-compliance, relying instead on voluntary cooperation and dialogue. This allows the Armenian government to implement selective, visible reforms—such as establishing anti-corruption bodies or minor electoral adjustments—while evading deeper systemic overhauls, as the EU prioritizes maintaining relations amid Armenia’s geopolitical shift away from Russia. For instance, despite CEPA’s emphasis on judicial independence, appointments to key positions like constitutional court judges often remain politically motivated, based on loyalty rather than merit, perpetuating favoritism.

Theatre of Reform: Staging Progress for EU Audiences

Official assessments, such as the 6th Partnership Committee meeting in July 2025 and the four-year CEPA milestone events in March 2025, have praised expanded cooperation, including peer-to-peer exchanges and progress in public administration reforms supported by EU projects. However, these are often critiqued as inflated, with civil society platforms, like the 6th EU-Armenia Civil Society Platform meeting in April 2025, underscoring persistent gaps in tangible citizen benefits and reform delivery. Post-2018 Velvet Revolution gains, such as improvements in Freedom House Freedom Score from 45/100 to 53/100 and Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) from 35/100 to 49/100 by 2020, have stagnated or regressed since 2020, with no significant advancements in judicial, electoral, or public administration systems. A September 2024 poll revealed only 16% public trust in Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and 61% distrust in all politicians, reflecting apathy and low voter turnout, such as 28.43% in the 2023 Yerevan elections versus 43.66% in 2018.

Legitimizing Superficial Reforms Without Accountability

CEPA’s structure and the EU’s implementation have been sharply criticized for fostering a veneer of reform while allowing structural stagnation to persist:

• Lack of Robust Accountability Mechanisms: The EU’s “weak conditionality” in sectors like police and electoral reforms permits ongoing human rights violations without repercussions, as evidenced by continued police brutality and the failure to enforce meaningful changes despite EU funding. For example, the EU-funded Patrol Service has been accused of escalating abuses, representing emblematic “reform without real change.”
• Superficial Reforms Masking Structural Issues: Reforms remain cosmetic, with enduring corruption, nepotism, and favoritism in public administration, the military, education, and justice. The implementation of the CEPA has been hampered by the prosecution of the opposition and pressure on democratic institutions, and constitutional reforms have stalled due to political instability and the lack of a national referendum amid the crisis. Inefficient bureaucracy continues to challenge EU alignment, as highlighted in 2025 analyses.
• Persecution of the Opposition and Pressure on the Media: The Armenian government has increasingly targeted opposition figures and the media, actions that contradict CEPA’s commitments to democracy and freedom of expression, yet face minimal EU pushback, allowing authoritarian drift. In 2024-2025, opposition persecution intensified, with unlawful arrests of political opponents, youth activists, peaceful protesters, and clergy on fabricated charges, such as alleged coup plots involving items like firecrackers and legal hunting rifles. Notable cases include the July 2025 arrests of Archbishops Bagrat Galstanyan and Mikayel Ajapahyan, Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, and opposition parliamentarians, accused of planning a violent usurpation of power with scant evidence; opposition claims these are preemptive moves to neutralize rivals ahead of 2026 elections and appease Azerbaijan. The government has weaponized the judiciary, denying detainees access to lawyers, using intimidation tactics, and labeling opposition as “pro-Russian” to delegitimize dissent. On media pressure, despite Armenia’s improved World Press Freedom Index ranking from 43rd in 2024 to 34th in 2025, underlying issues persist, including 14 incidents of physical violence against 23 journalists and cameramen during protests in the first half of 2024, and 43 other pressure cases. In January-June 2024, politicians filed 29 libel lawsuits against opposition media, which led to financial threats and self-censorship. Legislative proposals in February 2025, including Criminal Code amendments imposing fines up to 3,000,000 AMD or up to 2 years’ imprisonment for insulting public servants via media, have been criticized as repressive.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA) has ultimately functioned more as a tool of geopolitical legitimization than as a catalyst for genuine democratic transformation in Armenia. Despite its ambitious framework and the recent elevation of its political status, the agreement’s fundamental lack of binding enforcement mechanisms and the EU’s pragmatic prioritization of strategic interests over normative conditionality have created a permissive environment for “reform without real change.” The Armenian government has adeptly leveraged CEPA to showcase selective, superficial compliance—establishing new institutions and engaging in dialogue—while entrenched issues of corruption, judicial politicization, and authoritarian practices not only endure but intensify. The escalating persecution of the opposition and pressure on the media starkly contradict the agreement’s core principles, yet they continue with minimal meaningful pushback from the EU. Therefore, without the introduction of rigorous, consequences-based accountability, CEPA risks becoming a long-term facade that inadvertently sustains the very structural deficiencies it was designed to eradicate, undermining its own credibility and the democratic aspirations of the Armenian people.