#Azerbaijan: EU to launch negotiations on agreement

The European Council (14 November) adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should take account of the shared objectives and challenges. Azerbaijan is one of the Eastern Partnership countries.

The Eastern Partnership countries choose the extent of political association and economic integration they wish to achieve with the EU. The EU calls on these countries to implement ‘deep’ democracy.

Azerbaijan’s democracy can still be described as relatively weak. Since 1992 the Presidency has been in the hands of the Aliyev family that are closely associated with a post-Soviet elite. Many opposition parties boycotted last year’s elections , which gave a clear victory to President Ilham Aliyev. As recently as August 2015 the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe described Azerbaijan as being in an ‘anti-democratic freefall’.

The European Parliament proposed a resolution strongly condemning the unprecedented repression against civil society in Azerbaijan, in September 2015, saying that the human rights situation had deteriorated continuously over the last few years, with growing intimidation and repression and intensification of the practice of criminal prosecution of NGO leaders, human rights defenders, journalists and other civil society representatives.

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