The outcome of June’s Armenian parliamentary election, in which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party secured re-election, reaffirmed that closer engagement with Europe remains an important part of Armenia’s public and political debate. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s recent visit to Yerevan, during which she announced a substantial package of economic and development support, underscores that the political will now exists, and must be acted on to create a long-lasting, meaningful partnership between Armenia and the European Union (EU).

The significance of this moment extends beyond politics. The real test now is whether both sides can translate renewed momentum into practical cooperation that strengthens Armenia’s economy while advancing Europe’s own strategic and economic interests. The most promising avenue for doing so is a more ambitious economic partnership, one that strengthens Europe’s economic resilience by diversifying its commercial links in the South Caucasus and reinforcing regional security. The inaugural May 2026 EU-Armenia Summit marked a turning point in this regard, prioritising strategic investments in transport, energy and digital sectors. Von der Leyen’s visit to Yerevan reinforced this by announcing a series of measures to deepen economic cooperation, including an additional €18 million in trade support (completing the EU’s €52 million assistance package) and the removal of tariffs on Armenian exports.

As the Chairman of the Board at FastShift, an Armenian payment and transfer company, I have seen firsthand how Armenian businesses can compete in European markets, but also the practical barriers that continue to limit trade and investment. That is why I believe we must now capitalise on this momentum by launching an aggressive EU-Armenia Trade Acceleration Facility, expanded export-credit and guarantee instruments, creating a public private business council with a mandate to deliver bankable projects, and accelerated standards certification for Armenian agrifood and manufacturing exporters. These are not merely administrative steps; they are investments in more resilient European supply chains, stronger regional connectivity, and a trusted economic partner on the EU’s eastern frontier.

Expanding trade, increasing investment, enhancing market access, and progressing regulatory alignment offer some of the most promising avenues for deepening the ties between Armenia and the EU. This partnership can help translate public expectations for economic opportunity and reform into tangible prosperity – and in turn, create new opportunities for growth, innovation, and connectivity. By strengthening economic links and expanding access to markets, both the EU and Armenia can build a relationship that delivers lasting benefits and reinforces Armenia’s successful reform trajectory.

The economic case is already being made by the numbers 

This partnership won’t be built from scratch; it is an evolution of a dynamic, established bond. The EU already serves as Armenia’s fourth-largest trading partner and its third-largest source of imports, with services trade between the two surging by 20% between 2022 and 2023. These current ties provide a resilient, proven foundation for deeper integration. Bolstered by political will in Yerevan and clear support from Armenian voters, who seek a European future, we are now positioned to rapidly scale this engagement.

The economic necessity of this shift is underscored by data. While Armenia’s trade with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) reached $9 billion in the first eight months of 2024, EAEU member states accounted for more than 35% of Armenia’s total trade, compared with just 11% for the EU.

This reliance has become a strategic liability. Repeated, punitive restrictions from Moscow on Armenian exports, including the suspension of imports of fresh produce and restrictions on flower and alcohol products, have exposed the fragility of concentrated market dependence. This volatility creates a compelling, urgent case for Armenia to pivot toward the EU, establishing a reliable, diversified trading partnership that ensures both economic stability and sovereign prosperity. The EU has already begun responding. Its recently announced Autonomous Trade Measures, liberalising around 80% of Armenian exports, offer a credible alternative for the produce and beverage sectors hardest hit by Russian trade restrictions. For Europe, helping Armenia reduce this vulnerability is an investment in limiting economic coercion on the EU’s eastern periphery. 

Europe already has the tools, now is the time to act at pace

The EU already has the architecture; what it now needs is urgency. The €270 million Resilience and Growth Plan, the Global Gateway commitment of up to €2.5 billion in EU-backed investment, the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement, and the Connectivity Partnership signed this year – targeting transport, energy and digital links – provide a formidable platform.

This requires a shift from project-based cooperation to a fast-track EU-Armenia economic partnership. By focusing on specific, high-impact areas – export readiness, customs harmonisation, logistics, sanitary standards, banking compliance, and SME finance – we can bridge the gap between diplomatic aspiration and commercial reality.

The EBRD-backed Yerevan Customs and Logistics Centre is the blueprint for this approach: it is exactly the kind of concrete investment that transforms policy into tangible trade. With 11,853 Armenian SMEs already supported by EU programmes in 2024, the foundation is set. It is time to scale these proof-of-concept successes into a sustained, accelerated partnership.

The banking sector, the engine of economic integration

If trade is the destination, the financial sector is the engine. My experience leading FastShift has proven to me that Armenian banks are already working with exporters to navigate the intricate regulatory and compliance requirements of European counterparties – from standards certification, euro-denominated settlement, correspondent banking relationships, and anti-money laundering frameworks.

However, scaling this engagement requires more than market will; it needs targeted financial infrastructure. A high-impact EU-Armenia partnership must go beyond policy to actively support Armenian banks in their role as the plumbing of trade. By co-financing logistics upgrades, backing export-credit guarantees, and streamlining payment corridors connecting Yerevan to Frankfurt and Brussels, we can resolve the bottlenecks that currently slow trade flow.

The strategic case for this partnership is reinforced by Armenia’s own commitment to financial integrity. Recent reforms, including the Central Bank’s move toward more robust risk-based supervision, stricter prudential safeguards againstdollarisation and foreign-currency exposure, and ongoing efforts to strengthen central bank governance, signal a banking system operating with transparency and discipline. These are not merely domestic adjustments; they are the necessary building blocks for an integrated financial ecosystem, proving that Armenia is not just a partner, but a ready and reliable one.

Connectivity is the long-term prize

Armenia’s geography has historically been viewed as a constraint. While landlocked, Armenia has the potential to transform from a regional dead-end into a critical junction – a vital node in the Middle Corridor. The 2025 EU-Armenia Strategic Agenda explicitly identifies connectivity, trade diversification, energy security and digital transformation as central pillars. What remains is to accelerate this transition.

By scaling EU investment in transport corridors and digital infrastructure, we can do more than just upgrade logistics – we can cement Armenia’s role as the bridge between Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. This is not merely an infrastructure play; it is sound commercial policy that directly advances the EU’s own interest in resilient, diversified supply chains across Eurasia. 

A test of geopolitical seriousness

For Europe, anchoring Armenia within its fold is a strategic imperative that goes beyond neighbourhood policy – it is a powerful testament to the power of shared values. The time has come to champion the vision that deep alignment with European standards – rooted in democracy, rule of law and open, competitive markets – is the path to tangible prosperity while strengthening Europe’s resilience and presence in the South Caucasus. Armenia is an eager and capable partner in this mission.

This is a rare, defining opportunity to prove that investing in a path forged in shared democratic aspirations can deliver lasting stability, sovereignty, and a shared economic future for both Armenia and Europe.

“The gift of being alive is developing a garden in oneself,” the Armenian-Egyptian artist told Hyperallergic, “and to move towards heaven.”

YEREVAN, Armenia — After half a century of traveling around the world, Armenian-Egyptian artist Anna Boghiguian brings her art to Yerevan, at the National Gallery of Armenia. Weaving Culture is a natural history of Armenia illustrated in carpet, with the occasional irruption of people or supernatural beings. Suns, stars, flowers, and animals populate the works, much like the motifs of traditional Armenian rugs. 

Yet in traditional rugs, celestial bodies and creatures are encoded in smaller, geometric motifs, and are not always recognizable at first sight. In Boghiguian’s works, they become large and figurative, though often stylized, presences, set against expanses of pastel colors. In the words of curator Nairi Khatchadourian, Boghiguian’s project amounts to the invention of the watercolor carpet.

Anna Boghiguian: Weaving Culture tells its story in 37 rugs and three drawings, divided between three acts in contiguous halls. The first lays out the mountains of Armenia — massive, their tall peaks often tightly pressed against each other in a confusion of blues, browns, and purples. A huge red sun with yellow rays presides over a landscape bound by two red and grayish peaks separated by what looks like a valley. 

The second act is the garden. Trees and plants with large, blooming, blood-red flowers dominate here. A human figure appears in “Man with Pomegranate and Snake” (all works 2025–26). Storks are as ubiquitous in these works as they are in Armenia. The large tapestry “The Sound of Nature is Music” portrays clearly discernible trees, mountains, and flowers, yet its sinuous lines and the jumble of colors and undulating shapes may carry a faint echo of Arshile Gorky’s landscapes. 

What follows this earthly Eden are ancient trees, alchemists, and angels in conversation with birds. Instead of expulsion from paradise, we find “Angel Transforms into Bird and Vice Versa” and the monumental “Trees have a Memory,” with improbable colors that nevertheless feel true to the Armenian landscape. Indeed, one of the unintended technical by-products of Weaving Culture was the devising of a process for creating new natural dyes for wool, which resulted in the production of more than 200 shades.

The carpets were created by six displaced Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian weavers, who translated Boghiguian’s drawings into woven art. The exhibition also features a series of photographs by Piruza Khalapyan, a film from the artist’s residency produced by AHA collective, accompanying testimonials by the women weavers, as well as materials from the weaving and dyeing processes.

The story told by Boghiguian has been described as an epic. “Meghri, the Earth Rises,” a large carpet that depicts a crouching woman figure with a crested head, grasping what looks like a chunk of earth with a budding plant on it, would justify the label. Yet alongside the rest of the exhibition, the sequence feels like a convincingly secular, pictorial retelling of the Book of Genesis, one that replaces expulsion with ascent.

I spoke to Boghiguian first by phone and later by text message. The following interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. 

Left: detail of a work in Anna Boghiguian: Weaving Culture (photo © Daniil Primak); right: installation view of Anna Boghiguian: Weaving Culture (photo Daniil Primak)

Hyperallergic: Tell me when and how you saw Armenia first and how that changed over time.

Anna Boghiguian: Before visiting, as a child, I saw Armenia as a pink stone without construction. I flew there for the first time in the mid-’90s. It still had the marks of Soviet times in its ways of being. It is difficult to change a mind or mentality overnight. It takes time, and it is a journey in itself, as the baggage Armenia and Armenians carry is massive. Its history is vast and tragic.

Yerevan, Sevan, and Kirovakan [present-day Vanadzor] are the cities I visited, and repeatedly I saw the marks of human tragedy — the need for a better existence. There was no water, no electricity, no fuel for heating or fans to cool off in the summer — a stagnant economic situation that perseverance and a strong national will could move forward.

I visited the national historical museum as well as the national gallery. I don’t think there was an exhibition. I did not imagine that one day I would exhibit in Yerevan. I was in my late 40s and did not have the ambition or possibility to undertake large projects.

However, I was impressed by the museum in general, and its laid-back attitude. My drawings transition from wool to sheep to herds moving forward, like Armenia has moved forward since the mid-’90s.

H: Is this the first time you have employed wool as the primary medium of your art?

AB: Yes, it’s the first time. I had one experience a long time ago, but this is the first time it appears in so many pieces. I think the project has many facets. It relates to Artsakh [also known as Nagorno-Karabakh], it relates to Armenia in its use of wool and carpeting. 

H: You have created a new language that reimagines centuries of Armenian carpet-weaving tradition. You have broken down traditional geometry, themes, and even its processes to create a new language. Tell me how you conceived both its themes and its visual language.

AB: It is the weavers of Artsakh who have undertaken the task of weaving my drawings into carpets. They went out of their traditional way of thinking, and they managed to go beyond their barriers. They are the ones who managed to revolutionize the carpets. Not me. They managed to translate my works into carpets. They were very open to undertaking the project, so it’s not me but the weavers who agreed to adopt another process and take it to another level. They could have refused.

H: One of the most fascinating aspects of the creative process was the search for and creation of new colors. That, too, has a long tradition, most notably in the Armenian cochineal — the red dye obtained from beetles native to Armenia — which was prized by miniaturists in medieval Europe. Can you tell me about your exploration and creation of color for this work?

AB: I tried to create a simpler line and palette than usual. Armenia has a rich history in the use of cochineal red. There is a church in Ani that is a fine example of the Armenian red and the refinement of line and color. The only thing I did is that I tried to make my drawings less complicated than normal because of the weaving process.

H: What was it like working with displaced Armenian women from Artsakh?

AB: I’m not very acquainted with Armenian culture. I’ve been there two or three times, for a few days. But being Armenian probably runs in your blood. My work is globally Armenian, like the Armenians from Artsakh — they are Armenians and part of Armenia. They have kept their tradition of weaving alive. 

H: Do you recognize any elements of your Egyptian background in these works?

Well, it’s different. Cairo is different. I lived also for a long time in Canada. And I travel quite a bit in Asia. So it all comes together, you know. Culture is something that is all different ways of life; all different cultures meet, and that becomes the essence of everything. We cannot separate this from that, because at the end, culture comes and unites us together.

H: I felt I saw elements of Martiros Saryan, perhaps particularly from his early period, in the motifs of Weaving Culture? Would you acknowledge the influence of any Armenian artists?

AB: I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s a great compliment to compare me with Saryan, who is considered the most important Armenian painter. I admired Hagop Hagopian as a child. I loved his garlic paintings, but I doubt I have his inspiration or attitude. It is too much of a compliment to get near Saryan, as he is the greatest.

H: The exhibition progresses from the landscape to the garden and then to a metaphysical realm. What struck me was that the transition is from the garden to a heavenly abode, rather than to the expulsion from Eden. Can you elaborate on that choice?

AB: I didn’t take it as a heaven, but I thought it was a conversation of the soul. And of course, the garden. We all have a garden in ourselves. It’s the inner world of everybody. Either your garden is lush and prosperous, or your garden is dying and dead. So, it all depends on what you do with yourself. I don’t see an expulsion from Eden. The gift of being alive is developing a garden in oneself, to see nature as part of all, and to move towards heaven or towards conversation of the self with itself or the cosmos. We develop our history from the earth, or I did. Humanity is believed to have been expelled from Eden, and that is how Armenians live. I hope we recover.

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