Liparit Drmeyan, the former head of the RA representative’s office for international legal affairs, writes: “What you need to know.

A new constitution can be adopted exclusively through a referendum (Article 202 of the Constitution and Article 4, Part 1, Clause 1 of the Referendum Law). And the only option to change the non-amendable articles of the Constitution is to adopt a new constitution, for example, if you want to make the reference to the Declaration of Independence non-amendable.

Membership in the EU and any other supranational organization, termination of membership can be decided only through a referendum (Article 205 of the Constitution and Article 4, Part 1, Clause 3 of the Referendum Law). No law or government decision can replace it.

The above-mentioned issues can be put to the referendum ONLY with at least 2/3 of the votes of the deputies of the National Assembly, except for the issues of membership in the supranational structures and the change of territory, for which a majority of the total number of votes of the deputies is necessary. Moreover, if the specified number of votes in favor is not enough to adopt a decision to hold a referendum, then there is no other way to put the issue to a referendum, even by collecting 1 million signatures.

In the context of the current internal political realities, this means that if the parliamentary opposition did not vote in favor of putting the government’s draft constitution to a referendum and did not secure enough votes (2/3), the government will have no choice but to dissolve the parliament and hold early elections, hoping to get 2/3 of the mandates.

Regarding EU/EEU membership. until a referendum on EU membership is held, talking about any law or application or decision about membership is just an exercise in thought.”