The Armenian capital Yerevan played host this week to an unprecedented diplomatic gathering, as leaders from nearly fifty European nations converged for the eighth summit of the European Political Community. The occasion was notable not only for its location — a country long considered Russia’s closest ally in the South Caucasus — but for the presence of Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, the first non-European leader invited to the forum. Viewed from Washington, the summit appeared a direct rebuke to the transactional, insular tendencies that have marked the second Trump administration.

Carney’s opening remarks, in which he declared that the international order could be “rebuilt out of Europe” and that leaders were not “condemned to submit to a more brutal world,” were widely interpreted as a pointed response to American tariff hikes on European cars and the abrupt withdrawal of five thousand US troops from Germany days earlier. Yet the gesture was equally aimed eastwards. For Moscow, the sight of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa standing alongside Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday for the first ever bilateral EU-Armenia summit was a calculated signal.

Armenia remains a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and hosts a Russian military base, but its relationship with the Kremlin has soured dramatically since Moscow refused to intervene during the devastating conflicts with Azerbaijan in 2020 and 2023. Yerevan’s pivot towards the West, analysts in London note, is as much about necessity as choice: a small, landlocked nation of under three million people, dependent on Russia for energy and security, now seeks alternative guarantees. The presence of Turkey’s vice president at the EPC summit, an exception granted by organisers to underscore Ankara’s goodwill, hints at a broader regional thaw.

Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, was notably absent, a reminder that the Nagorno-Karabakh wound has not healed. But the broader narrative emerging from Yerevan is one of a continent — and its Canadian ally — recalibrating in the face of twin pressures: a revanchist Russia and an unpredictable United States. Carney’s invitation was itself a political statement, reflecting a surge of Canadian interest in European integration after polls showed a majority of Canadians would rather join the EU than become the 51st American state.

The summit’s location was equally deliberate. By choosing Armenia, European leaders sought to demonstrate that the community’s embrace extends to those still balancing between spheres of influence. As the summits concluded, the question lingering in the Caucasus air was whether this display of unity can be translated into concrete support — military, economic, and diplomatic — for a country trying to sever its umbilical cord to Russia without falling into a new dependency.

The answer may determine not only Armenia’s future but the credibility of Europe’s claim to be a geopolitical actor in its own right.