“We welcome the issuance of a mandate by the European Union for the preparation of an agreement for comprehensive cooperation with Azerbaijan…”
As reported by AZERTAG, this declaration was made by the head of the press service for Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MID), Hikmet Hajiyev, commenting on the Council of the European Union’s issuance of a mandate of the European Commission to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, at the start of negotiations for a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan.
He noted that on May 22, 2015, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov, met with Johannes Hahn, the EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, as part of the Fourth Eastern Partnership summit in Riga. Hahn was presented with a project for a Strategic Partnership Agreement between the Azerbaijani Republic and the European Union, and the takeaway was that Azerbaijan intends to develop ties with the EU in this direction.
We believe that the signing of a new agreement will create a legal framework and will raise the strategic cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan to a new level,” said Gajiyev.
We remind our readers that on July 13, 2015, at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, President Ilham Aliyev announced that Azerbaijan is uninterested in integration with Europe and that we do not need European values. This took place after European Games 2015 and the refusal of many European leaders to come to the opening ceremony for the games in Baku.
“I sometimes hear from government functionaries, parliamentary deputies, and public figures that we should integrate with Europe. Think, when you speak about this. First, you should know the president’s position. Second, how, in what form are you going to integrate? Do you need this integration, or no? In what capacity do they want to accept Azerbaijan there?
As a second-class member, and associate member, or as an afterthought. You do not need that sort of format. We have integrated where we needed to. We did this in those years when the situation in Europe was otherwise. I believe that today, if we had to make this choice, taking into account the present situation, then perhaps we would not have entered the Council of Europe. How many times can Azerbaijan be offended? How many times can they attempt to degrade us?
Our cup of patience has overflowed. We can get by perfectly well without the Council of Europe, and we have done so. We survived previous to 2001. At that time, a civil was underway in Azerbaijan, the Armenian occupation, political crisis, economic recession. We lived, we did not die” – so said President Aliyev at that meeting.
However, despite this, on May 23 of this year, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Elmar Mammadyarov, wen to Brussels all the same, to take part in a summit for the “Eastern Partnership” countries.
The Eastern Partnership is an integration project of the European Union, the primary goal of which is developing the European Union’s ties with six post-Soviet states: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. One of the foremost priorities of reforms in the partner countries and their cooperation with the EU is democracy and improving the countries’ governance systems.
