EU-Azerbaijan Partnership Agreement may be signed before summer

Baku / 29.04.19 / Turan: A bilateral agreement between Azerbaijan and the European Union will be signed by the summer of 2019, said Avaz Hasanov, head of the Society for Humanitarian Research. At a press meeting with journalists held in Baku at the International Eurasia Foundation, Hasanov expressed surprise at the tepid attitude of Azerbaijani civil society and non-governmental organizations to the forthcoming agreement, which will affect the life of every citizen of Azerbaijan. "Political parties do not hold round tables to discuss the future agreement between Azerbaijan and the EU. But when this document is adopted and confirmed by each of the 28 EU member states, it will be impossible to make changes to it," Hasanov warned.

The name of the agreement is not known. The press reports about the Comprehensive Agreement between Azerbaijan and the EU, the New Agreement on Strategic Partnership between Azerbaijan and the EU. "Political reforms in Azerbaijan are not related to the future document, since in our country these reforms are easily accepted by presidential decrees. The EU does not make demands on the Azerbaijan Republic in terms of political transformations as a condition for signing this document. The difficulty may lie in the implementation of the economic points of the document, since Azerbaijan is not a member of the WTO, although it provides Europe with five percent of oil supplies annually. The EU intends to lobby for the admission of Azerbaijan to the WTO.

The new agreement with the EU is necessary for the development of Azerbaijan, most of whose turnover falls on Europe, which is the largest foreign investor in our country. Moving closer to Europe, Azerbaijan will change very many internal norms and legislation in the field of health, economy, and education. The visa regime in the EU for the citizens of Azerbaijan will be facilitated. The doors will open for new European investments. One example is the European Union"s intention to allocate 2 billion euros for the development and expansion of the railway network in the five Eastern Partnership countries - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.

In the agreement with the European Union there will be a clause on the European support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including Nagorno-Karabakh, as the EU made statements about this, Hasanov added.

A. Hasanov drew attention to the fears of Azerbaijanis about the repressive anti-Azerbaijani actions of Russia, which occupied part of the lands of Georgia and Ukraine after these countries became Associative Members of the European Union. "In this lies the slowness of our country in negotiations with the European Union. Azerbaijan will not be an associative member of the EU; therefore, no aggressive actions by Moscow against our country, which remains on the hook of Russia from Karabakh, are expected. Russia can give us problems on the northern border, but I do not believe in that perspective, especially since in 2015 Azerbaijan refused to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, then left Euro-nest and other European programs, preferring a bilateral document with items designed specifically for Azerbaijan. The European Union cannot force Baku to sign a document that does not suit the country," the expert said. A. Hasanov does not believe that on the eve of May 28 there will be a pardon for political prisoners on the Republic Day. -0-