Doslovný zápis z rozpráv

Streda, 15. marca 2023 - Štrasburg

22.7. Vzťahy medzi EÚ a Azerbajdžanom (A9-0037/2023 - Željana Zovko)

Ústne vysvetlenia hlasovania

  Mick Wallace (The Left). – Mr President, the differing tones in the and Azerbaijan texts are striking. We need to coax the fledgling democracy Armenia away from Russia and our close partners, Iran. And we can’t condemn Azerbaijan enough for their military aggression, for persecution of political activists and civil society and for all kinds of human rights violations.

Yet, Azerbaijan, the dictatorship and the aggressor, is our close partner. We just signed an MOU with them to double imports of their natural gas to at least 20 billion cubic metres a year by 2027. They are great pals with our like-minded partners, Israel, who kill Palestinians on a daily basis. Azerbaijan are Israel’s largest oil supplier, and Israel sells to them 70% of the weapons they like to use against Armenians.

Our American partners see them as a useful tool in the battle against Iran – another reason for the Israeli arms sales. As with Armenia, not everything fits nicely into the larger narrative crafted in Brussels and Washington. Not only can we not form a coherent strategy in the area, and the EU will do well to watch its step in the Caucasus.

  Clare Daly (The Left). – Mr President, this report on Azerbaijan is a really interesting read. In it, we’ve alleged war crimes with torture and mutilation, the persecution of political dissidents, lack of women’s rights, racist hate speech, child labour, illicit spying on journalists and politicians, with the grotesquely evil trophy park in Baku; we’ve enforced disappearances, desecration of corpses, political repression, police brutality, intimidation, death threats and assassination against the opponents of the Azerbaijani Government; lack of media freedom, violation of human rights, not to mention no workers’ rights – because they don’t have any.

And after all of that, after all the squares of this shameless authoritarian bingo card have been ticked off, the EU’s oil and gas deal with Azerbaijan is signed in the same breath as, ‘We can’t do business with the authoritarian Russia. We’ll do it with these valiant defenders of democracy and human rights.’

If you want a clue about why nobody outside here takes this place seriously, well, this report is a very good place to start.

  Predsedajúci. – Týmto sa skončili vysvetlenia hlasovaní.