Yerevan to host European Political Community summit in 2026

By Alexander Pracht

Armenia will host a European Political Community (EPC) summit in the spring of 2026, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook page on Friday. The EPC was established in 2022 as a forum for political consultation among European countries in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The organization, which includes 47 participating countries, holds summits twice a year in different European cities. These gatherings have become especially important for Armenia as a venue for talks with Azerbaijan over normalization efforts.

On the sidelines of the EPC’s inaugural summit in Prague in 2022, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held landmark talks recognizing each other’s territorial integrity—marking the first time Armenia officially and directly acknowledged Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, effectively abandoning its pursuit of the region’s right to self-determination.

Most recently, Pashinyan and Aliyev spoke during the EPC summit in Tirana, Albania last week, though no specific details of their conversation were made public.

It remains unclear whether Aliyev or Turkey’s leader, Recep Erdogan, will attend the 2026 summit in Yerevan.