On 21 April, the Council of the EU announced the establishment of the EU Partnership Mission (EUPM) Armenia, a new civilian CSDP mission. The Council of the European Union launched the mission after a request from Armenian authorities, with an initial two-year mandate.

What will the mission do?

According to a statement by the Council of the EU,EUPM’s mandate will focus on severalincreasingly pressing and multi-faceted concerns in Armenia, including foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), cyber-attacks, and illegal financial flows.

The mission will do this through two central avenues:

• Strategic advice and capacity-building: this will focus on developing policies within several ministries and national institutions, to address the mandate issues, and 

• Operational advice and project support: focussed on identifying and implementing actions aligned with the mission mandate, in collaboration with partners.

EUPM will be the second mission in Armenia. It will work in collaboration with the EU Mission in Armenia (EUMA), a civilian monitoring and reporting mission established in 2023, and tasked with observing and reporting on the situation on the ground, contributing to confidence building and human security in conflict-affected areas.

Background

In 2025, the EU-Armenia Partnership Council approved a new Strategic Agenda for the EU-Armenia partnership, which marked a deepening of relations across several priority areas, including security and defence.  

Speaking about the establishment of the EUPM mission, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas said:

“Armenians are facing massive disinformation campaigns and cyber-attacks. Over the next years, a new EU civilian mission will provide expert advice, capacity building for government departments and a team monitoring areas for urgent action.” 

With the establishment of EUPM, there will be a total of 14 active EU Civilian CSDP missions. The last mission established was EUPM Moldova in 2023.