Azerbaijan, Turkey suspected of providing cover for Russian interests in EU

A serious hardening of the diplomatic reaction of the EU against Azerbaijan following the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh can be expected at the diplomatic level in order to prevent aggression towards the Armenian sovereign territory, Bulgarian MEP Radan Kanev (EPP, Democratic Bulgaria) said during an exclusive interview for Euractiv Bulgaria.

Bulgarian energy experts and diplomats confirmed this assessment but added that sanctions against the regime in Baku are only possible with the support of the US, which can replace Azeri gas supplies. They suspect Azerbaijan and Turkey as a front for Russian interests in the EU.

“The position of the EU depends very much on the leadership role of France. President Macron’s apparent ambition is to play a decisive role in foreign policy. Bulgaria is a country with a very strong relationship with the Armenian people, like France, and it can be expected that Sofia will show solidarity with this French position,” Kanev predicted.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on 5 October to review EU-Azerbaijan relations and impose sanctions over the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. The MEPs also propose to reduce the dependence on the import of gas and oil from Azerbaijan.

According to Kanev, Baku’s aggressive policy poses a very big threat to the pro-European government in Armenia, which has been deliberately abandoned by Russia precisely because of this pro-EU course.

“One explanation is that Russia is now helpless, but there is also an element of punitive behaviour towards the Armenian government because of its pro-European policy.

The EU and European countries have a moral duty to intervene in the event of any aggression towards the Armenian sovereign territory,” Kanev said. He added that gas supplies to the EU are the main thing that Azerbaijan relies on in the conflict.

“The EU has not imposed uniform sanctions on Russian gas supplies. I would not expect such, which also explains the self-confidence of this policy of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev,” the Bulgarian MEP said.

Azerbaijan risks sanctions

Answering whether Azerbaijan can afford to stop the supply of gas to the EU, the Bulgarian energy expert and former ambassador to Moscow Ilian Vassilev commented to Euractiv that “neither Azerbaijan will stop supplies, nor the EU will stop gas purchases” in the near future.

“The very idea of the EU playing “hard” against Azerbaijan is unlikely to find many supporters, especially among the governments of the EU countries that currently receive Azeri gas. The EU is overwhelmed with the war in Ukraine,” Vassilev commented.

However, according to him, in the long term, consequences for the regime in Baku can be expected, because the sensitivity of the EU to regimes that lead to aggressive politics and wars is growing.

“If the EU and the US agree on a sanctions policy towards Azerbaijan, American liquefied natural gas can replace Azeri gas.

However, the EU managed to overcome dependence on more than 150 billion cubic metres of Russian gas, it will overcome 15 billion cubic metres of dependence on Azeri gas. “Everything depends on Baku’s reactions, on how much they understand the risks of alienating Europe,” Vassilev said.

According to him, the risks for Bulgaria from the conflict are not small, but they are not directly related only to the expulsion of the Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.

“After this conflict, Azerbaijan sharply increased its dependence on Turkey and reduced valuable and, in many respects, irretrievable political capital to Europe. The Azeri leadership was bathed in attention and special treatment from Brussels, regardless of Turkey. Today, Russian oil and gas are being “laundered” through Turkey, and direct contracts for the supply of Azeri oil and gas to Europe may be in jeopardy,” the expert warned.

Red lights in Brussels

Vassilev recalled the decision of the Azeri energy company SOCAR to receive a huge loan from Russia’s Lukoil to process large quantities of Russian crude oil at its refinery in Turkey, which caused many “red lights” to light up in Brussels. According to him, in Bulgaria, the moves of Azeri politicians and companies and the strengthening of ties with Russia and Turkey, at the expense of the EU, are also very carefully monitored.

“These moves, at least at this stage, are not encouraging,” Vasilev said. Bulgaria and Greece are particularly dependent on Azeri gas supplies.

“Baku simply handed over to Ankara the right to negotiate with the EU for energy, which means that there is a high probability that more Azeri gas will enter the Turkish gas mix that will be exported to the EU, at the expense of direct contracts. The question is how the EU will look at Turkey’s role in this process, and whether it will impose sanctions,” Vassilev commented.

He added that the Russian gas mix includes Russian, Azeri and Iranian gas. “I expect the war between Hamas and Israel to have an impact as well, especially in the context of Russia’s increased interests in diverting attention from Ukraine.”

“Baku just needs to decide where it stands,” Vassilev said.

“Azerbaijan has much more to lose if it comes to sanctions. Considering how important it is for the country’s economy to guarantee supplies to Europe, Baku will comply rather than impose countermeasures,” Martin Vladimirov, director of the “Energy and Climate” program at the influential Bulgarian think-tank Center for the Study of Democracy, commented.

He predicts that if real actions are taken by Azerbaijan against the EU, Bulgaria will suffer because it currently receives a third of its natural gas from there.

This gas is much cheaper than the price in international markets.

However, this also applies to many other countries in the Balkans, and a shortage of gas for one of these countries will cause a shortage for the others as well.

The EU is “deafeningly silent”

He pointed out that the European Union’s silence on Azerbaijan’s behaviour in Nagorno-Karabakh is “deafening”.

“This silence creates the feeling of a double standard – some cases are seen as a violation of international law, while others are simply ignored. This gives hope to other countries that have territorial disputes with their neighbours to resolve them unilaterally with military force. We must strongly emphasize that Armenia occupied these territories after a military intervention in the early 1990s. It took the region by force and drove out the Azeris. But this does not mean that we should accept that the current situation is a fair rematch,” Vladimirov explained.

He also explains the “silence” in Brussels with the fact that Azerbaijan is a key supplier of oil and gas. According to him, there is nothing positive about Europe replacing its dependence on one authoritarian state with another.

Therefore, in the long term, the EU should set itself the goal of becoming independent of fossil fuels, and, in the short term, diversify its supplies to allied countries with a similar geopolitical position and a common understanding of human rights.

The Bulgarian expert commented that Azerbaijan has always been an authoritarian state, but in recent years, democratic institutions have been completely destroyed there, the personality of President Ilham Aliyev has been elevated to a cult, and all democratic rights have been crushed.

Azerbaijan lobbies against human rights in the EU

“Azerbaijan is lobbying Europe in every possible way to stop the reporting of these crimes against human rights. It has been proven over the years how lobbyists have worked to protect its positions. It had this problem with Russia before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to this day. Both Russia and Azerbaijan used the services of ‘assistants’ throughout the EU to change the bloc’s foreign policy stance and protect their interests,” Vladimirov said.

He argued that the crushing of Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh could not have taken place without the tacit support of Russia, which was the main guarantor of Armenia’s territorial integrity but decided not to intervene in this conflict. This means that there was certainly cooperation with Baku – talks and coordination of actions before the Azeri invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Vladimirov says that there is a clear agreement between Azerbaijan and Russia that alternative energy supplies to Europe will continue.

“There is also a suspicion that Azerbaijan and Turkey are currently working with Gazprom to establish a new route for Russian supplies and to completely stop transit through Ukraine. This will be a serious blow to the Ukrainian state. In fact, both Azerbaijan and Turkey serve as a cover for large deliveries of Russian gas through the Balkans and to Central Europe,” Vladimirov said.

(Krassen Nikolov, Antonia Kotseva | Euractiv.bg)