How European politics undermines the peace agenda in the South Caucasus

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The European Commission approved the deployment of a new mission to Armenia on 21 April that would share European experience in handling hybrid threats. 

As this latest gesture of support from Brussels has been extended on the eve of the very important parliamentary elections in Armenia, there is little doubt about its purpose. It is primarily aimed at containing the influence of Moscow, which would like to reverse Yerevan’s foreign policy shift towards a peaceful and more diversified foreign policy.

However, certain signals coming from Europe may themselves amount to hybrid threats against the expanding peace process between Baku and Yerevan. On 28 April, a large group of 42 Members of European Parliament put forward a joint motion for a resolution on “Supporting democratic resilience in Armenia”. While seemingly focused on the domestic political process, this motion contains several undisguised accusations against Azerbaijan.

It castigates the terms “Western Azerbaijan” and “Zangezur corridor” as “territorial claims against Armenia”.

Furthermore, it openly mentions Azerbaijan, on par with Russia, as the party responsible “for hybrid warfare, disinformation, and foreign interference” against Yerevan. And most importantly, calls the prisoners of Armenian origin detained in Baku for separatism, terrorism and other grave crimes, “illegally held hostages”.

The document calls for the European Commission to work more actively on ensuring their immediate and unconditional release.

It was endorsed by the MPs from five major parliamentary groups representing most European Union member states, and include a number of prominent names including David McAllister, Chairman of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs committee, notable French politicians such as François-Xavier Bellamy and Nathalie Loiseau, President of Centrist Democratic group Antonio López-Istúriz. While some of the authors have been criticising Baku for a long time, some of the names are new.

This latest document follows in the footsteps of similar recent resolutions adopted by the Belgian and Dutch parliaments on 16 April. These resolutions triggered a diplomatic backlash from Baku, including the summoning of the respective ambassadors to the Azerbaijani MFA.

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Deliberate provocation?

However, while Azerbaijan got used to the biased attitude of the European Parliament, such a resolution at this particular moment should ring alarm bells.

The narratives it espouses, ignore the latest achievements in the normalisation between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Just as the motion was put forward in Strasbourg, in Armenia an historic meeting was held between Deputy Prime Ministers of the two countries, Mher Grigoryan and Shahin Mustafayev. The meeting featured the adoption of mutually agreed rules and procedures for the delimitation process.

At the same time, the progress of the peace negotiations has been recognised several times by key EU officials, including the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas and the President of the European Council Antonio Costa during their visits to Baku.

Against this positive background, last week Azerbaijan dispatched a delegation including representatives of several ministries and headed by Deputy MFA Yalchin Rafiyev, to Brussels to conduct a new round of negotiations of a new Azerbaijan-EU bilateral treaty.

At the same time, the interest of individual European states has been on the rise too: prime ministers of Latvia and Czechia have paid official visits to Azerbaijan, while Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is also expected shortly.

The relations are steadily growing, fuelled by Europe’s interest in purchasing more natural gas and gaining stable and reliable access to the resources of Central Asia. Even those countries which for a few years had been taking a confrontational attitude vis-a-vis Baku, such as France and Netherlands, have recently made overtures aimed at diplomatic de-escalation and restoring ties.

At this moment in time, the aforementioned resolution looks like an odd, against-the-clock sort of thing. However, the latest revelation of the Azerbaijani media portal Minval draws a different picture. In a leaked video, the former International Court of Justice (ICJ) prosecutor-turned-Armenian-lobbyist, Argentinian Luis Ocampo, who was very vocal condemning the “blockade of Garabakh” by Azerbaijan in 2023, is heard ruminating about bribing the-then EU Foreign Commissioner Josep Borrel, so that he takes a pro-Armenian stance. But most shockingly, he suggests deposing Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan, allegedly for his unwillingness to continue the conflict with Azerbaijan.

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This finding throws light to the systematic activity of groups related to radical Armenian diaspora and, quite likely, aligned with Russian geopolitical interests. It would not be erroneous to assume that good relations between Brussels and Baku are not appreciated in Moscow, and the Garabakh conflict has long been viewed as the crucial tool for disrupting these ties.

This alignment has never been restricted to the European Parliament only. We can recall the story of suspension of Azerbaijan’s voting rights in the Council of Europe in the early 2024, driven forward by a German politician Frank Schwabe, who, despite his ostensibly anti-Russian rhetoric right now, had strong connections with Russian energy giant Gazprom.

While anti-Azerbaijani activities in European organs have used the 44-day war and later, what they label as the so-called “ethnic cleansing” of Garabakh Armenians as a justification, they actually started before 2020 and continued even as Baku in 2018-2019 was actively trying to find a compromise with the new Pashinyan government.

With all the range of arguments used, the discourse shares one feature. It invariably puts Azerbaijan into the same basket with Russia, as if the former is Moscow’s tool of disrupting European values and security. Quite obviously, this campaign served to poison the Baku-Brussels ties, and most probably was meant to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, it played an exceptionally toxic role in the period between 2020-2023. During this period its actions first undermined the progress achieved under the mediation of Charles Michel. It then contributed to the prevention of the talks between Azerbaijani government and the separatist representatives. While Russian forces on the ground were effectively banning such contacts, the Ocampo-led campaign nurtured an illusion among Armenians that the “collective West” would somehow intimidate Baku and trigger the recognition of the so-called independence of the separatist regime.

Unsurprisingly, Baku is now considering to fully sever its cooperation with the European Parliament which has already been frozen for a while. There is little doubt left that attacks which have not stopped even after Baku and Yerevan reached an agreement, represent a conscious effort to spoil the peace process and reignite confrontation in the South Caucasus.

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At the same time, the positive momentum with Europe can be preserved and developed only if Brussels takes a fully consistent approach in the region, shielding the common security and geopolitical interests from the spoilers who put their narrow political agendas above all else.

Read more:

• EU resolution on Armenia raises concerns amid fragile South Caucasus peace process
• External pressure from Europe complicates Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process
• Baku-Yerevan peace process gains urgency ahead of Armenian elections

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News Politics European Commission Armenia European Union Baku Yerevan Azerbaijan EU Russia