New Delhi, June 8 -- The vote had barely been counted when Brussels answered. Speaking before EU defence ministers gathered in Cyprus on Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas confirmed that the bloc is preparing a formal economic support package for Armenia, a country that chose a European future on Sunday under conditions that tested whether that choice was even free to make.

and the result, however tight, pointed West.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party fell just short of 50 percent of the popular vote. It did not need to clear that threshold. Under Armenian electoral law, the allocation of mandates to national minorities and the redistribution of votes cast for parties that failed to enter parliam...