Interviewed by Orkhan Sattarov, head of the European Bureau of Vestnik Kavkaza
Vilnius will host a summit of the Eastern Partnership on November 28-29. The EU program was initially organized for political and economic collaboration with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldavia, Belarus and Ukraine. Alexander Rahr, Director for Research at the German-Russian Forum NGO, has described the relations of Europeans and Baku, Tbilisi and Kiev on the eve of the summit.
- The European Union has passed a resolution criticizing the elections in Azerbaijan, after which Azerbaijan halted cooperation with the EU within the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership (Euronest). How will relations between Baku and Brussels develop in the next 5 years of Ilham Aliyev’s presidency?
- I see no changes. The relations will develop the way they have been developing in the last 20 years. The economic cooperation between members of the European Union and Azerbaijan will keep developing, although, perhaps, not as successfully, not as dynamically as many thought. But the reason why it does not develop dynamically is the scrapping of Nabucco. The European Union certainly expected more. In the field of human rights and cooperation in the strengthening of democratic institutions or the civil society, I doubt Baku would cooperate with the European Union where the latter affects formation of institutions and societies in Azerbaijan unilaterally. Unlike other states depending on certain finances the EU grants for formation of civil societies of the states, institutions of cooperation and etc., Azerbaijan has no need for such funds. It has more free maneuvers and will doubtlessly use economic and financial levers to form beneficial platforms for cooperation with the EU. It is a specific form of cooperation between Azerbaijan and the EU, it is quite pragmatic, Azerbaijan would not agree on anything else.
I believe that, in reality, the West agrees on such a form of cooperation out of geopolitical reasons because Azerbaijan is quite an important player in the Caucasus. Azerbaijan is situated in a region bordering with the Middle East, and Iran, where the events may become more dramatic. This is why Azerbaijan will surely continue receiving the support of the West. But I assume that cooperation will now flow in a more pragmatic field. Of course, the West, basing on its understanding of morales and human rights, will continue criticizing Azerbaijan for, in the eyes of the West, developing democracy slower than Europe would want.
- Angela Merkel was the first European leader to congratulate Ilham Aliyev on his re-election as the President. At the same time, Germany held parliamentary polls, formed a big coalition. How will Azerbaijani-Germany relations develop in the context of a big coalition because socialists are a lot more critical about human rights?
- Germany has two interests. It is not an ambivalent, but a dual-vector foreign policy of Germany. You need to get used to it. Partners, including Azerbaijan, should understand it. There is a policy of interests. From this German point of view, it is very important to have good pragmatic relations with Azerbaijan as a state with resources Europe, including Germany, needs. Besides, Azerbaijan is located in a strategically-important, as I have already said, region: it borders with Iran, it may play a role in suppressing extremism in the future. Azerbaijan is a stable state and it means a lot in the South Caucasus. This is why Germany will do all it can to develop diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan.
In the EU, including Germany, people do not lose hope that Azerbaijan would some day sign an agreement with Turkmenistan, and maybe even with Kazakhstan, to build the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline to add a new meaning to the idea of Nabucco. Maybe some day, the project will be realized. But it is certainly a topic for a very distant future. Germany – and Azerbaijan and all partners of Germany must clearly see it – has a policy of positive values. It is being realized in Europe and gains momentum. It is an attempt to form the same democratic, market and electoral conditions as in expanding Europe and beyond. It is these conditions that helped Western Europe build a system of values, the system of power formed after the WWII.
Germany will keep doing anything to promote the ideas, the model to partners, guided by the supposition that the model is more correct, more humane and more successful in the globalizing world. This is why such talks will continue and should be taken easy. Azerbaijan should understand that Germany has a dual-vector policy and should build relations with it basing on this fact.
- You have mentioned the Trans-Caspian Pipeline. It is known that Russia and Iran are opposed to realization of the project. You also said that Kazakhstan may join the pipeline project in the future. How vividly do you see such prospects, bearing in mind that Kazakhstan is a member of the Customs Union and cooperates closely with Russia, a state speaking out against such project?
- This project seems utopian and unrealizable to me at the current stage of development. The gas market is changing. In Europe, we see that the cash market is playing a bigger and bigger role. Gas is not only transported to Europe through pipes, liquefied gas is also imported from the Gulf. Maybe in a few years, liquefied gas will be transported to Europe through America. The matter of new large, especially expensive and politically complicated pipelines from complicated regions, all these ideas seen in wide circulation a few years ago, are under reconsideration today. South Stream will soon be under construction, North Stream has almost been completed. Ukrainian pipeline systems will probably be modernized. Certainly, pipelines will also be built in Europe to supply countries receiving insufficient volumes of gas and lacking infrastructure. But realization of such grand projects, such as revival of the big Nabucco idea, are hard to imagine.
- Georgia recently held presidential polls and the age of duality of power, when Saakashvili was the President and Ivanishvili was the Prime Minister, has come to an end. Does Georgian Dream’s hold of power bring new prospects of settling the Abkhaz and South Ossetian conflict? Should we take prospects of a pro-Russian turn in the Georgian foreign policy seriously?
- I do not think there is much to say about pro-Russian or anti-Russian policy. Saakashvili undoubtedly had an anti-Russian policy. Modern political forces, that I believe have taken power and become stronger, are neither anti-Russian, nor pro-Russian. They have a more pragmatic approach to the situation. Many, I believe, understand that the conflict that happened around Abkhazia and South Ossetia five years ago, should be settled differently. They judge by the new realities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, so they can establish relations with Russia from scratch. I reckon it will happen because Georgia understands that it has support from the West at a certain scale, but it should still form constructive relations, including economic relations, with its northern neighbour, with Russia, and other neighbours, including new players entering the Caucasus markets. They are China and other Asian states. This is why I believe that the policy will be quite pragmatic and Georgians will try to stick to it. Georgia understands that it needs to move towards Europe. It has a chance, just as other Trans-Caucasus and Ukraine, to get secure footing in the Greater Europe.
I assume that Georgian elites stick to the idea that the process is quite long and stimulating it is very hard. There is also a problem of forming the necessary cores within the society, development of European conscience within the society to push Georgia towards Europe. It seems that Georgia has realized that it cannot be done the way Saakashvili was doing it, forming an image of Russia as an enemy. As in saying “Russia is so bad, so save us, take us.” But the West did not helped Georgia too much during the Georgian-Russian conflict five years ago. The West expects that the country will make its own steps in building relations with Moscow. Clearly, they will have same expectations for Russia, but this is a different topic.
- Do you think Kiev will sign the EU association agreement at the Vilnius summit?
- In my opinion, the European Union is in dire need to have at least one of the members of the Eastern Partnership to sign the association agreement with the EU. Otherwise, the eastern policy of the European Union will be in doubt. If the partnership is five years old and not a single partner has signed the association agreement, there arises a justified question about the efficiency of the partnership. This is why the EU has big hopes that Ukraine (the largest of the six members of the European Eastern Partnership) will be the first associated member of the European Union. I believe that there are big chances for that. Ukraine went a long way in this direction, in this particular year, and managed to really show the EU that it had started serious reforms of the legal system. Major conflicts between Ukraine and Russia – Kiev and Moscow are currently in another phase of conflicts – forced Ukrainian elites to turn towards the European Union to gain a certain level of security and protection from Russia.
But, as we know, there is a problem with Yulia Timoshenko. If she does not get released from prison for treatment in Germany, the association agreement may not see signatures. Overall, I suppose that the diplomatic trick of Ukrainian policy hides in keeping a foot in both worlds. So I reckon that even after signing the association with the EU, after Ukraine achieves it and celebrates the step as tremendous success of Ukrainian diplomacy in the Western direction, obviously, the next day will see all attempts to save the eastern policy in order to improve relations with Russia. That said, I do not rule out that eventually Ukraine, to a big surprise of many, will be associated with both the EU and the Customs Union.
