The Euronest Parliamentary Assembly is the most unsuccessful and damaging component of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership program. Although created to open new venues of international dialogue, it has become a forum of platitudes, biased discourse and double standards. Instead of providing common solutions to the major problems of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) with the help of the EU, the Euronest assembly is mired in endless irrelevant discussions, with no end-results or implementation powers.

Furthermore, the double-standard approach of the European Parliament (EP) towards the EaP countries serves only to deteriorate further the relevance of Euronest. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) show double standards in their declarations, resolutions and reports towards most of the countries in the Assembly. In particular, despite declaring within the Euronest context that they are open to fair and equal cooperation, despite numerous messages, letters and signs of friendship from the members of the Azerbaijani delegation to Euronest, the Parliament routinely passes documents denigrating the situation in Azerbaijan, full of grave and unfounded accusations.

The paradox is that the European Parliament considers itself as a promoter of rule of law and the independence of the judiciary worldwide while at the same time continuously criticising and questioning the functioning of judicial powers, procedures, activities and deliberations in other, democratic and sovereign countries.

Over the past years, regular attacks have come from the European Parliament against Azerbaijan. Every year since 2011 the European Parliament has passed in resolutions alleging human rights violations, without any substantive facts. This proves ill will on the side of those MEPs voting for these documents and makes the EP an untrustworthy partner for Azerbaijan.

The Members of European Parliament or national politicians who take fair position towards Azerbaijan are themselves criticized and attacked in Brussels at every turn. When even the official delegation of the European Parliament produced reports saying elections in Azerbaijan were free and fair (for ex: Presidential elections 2013), the enemies of Azerbaijan in the Parliament managed to harass the delegation and to attack and investigate its members.

The MEPs who are members of the Euronest PA are not necessarily members of the committees of the Parliament. This means that the Members who interact with the Eastern Partner countries are not the ones preparing and taking decisions. This invalidates any kind of promise made to Eastern Partners in Euronest PA.

Going to Euronest PA meetings, working on the Euronest PA reports does not guarantee in any way a good report in the European Parliament, or a good rapport with the European Commission. In fact, Euronest PA takes away from the effort needed to deal with the real power holders in Brussels.

This can be seen by the fact that after Armenia signed the Customs Union Treaty with Russia and joined the Eurasian Union, literally turning its back to the EU, there still were no criticisms made against it by the European Parliament or by Euronest. On the contrary, the Euronest PA rewarded Armenia, by holding its next plenary session in 2015 in Yerevan.

Added to this clear anti-Azerbaijani bias, we have also to question the relevance and usefulness of Euronest as an inter-parliamentary exercise. Despite requiring intense resources, huge amounts of time, travel and visits to Brussels, Strasbourg and other cities, despite endless bickering and debate, its final documents fail to add any new ideas, identify solutions to exiting problems or have any legislative power whatsoever. The EP has no follow-up to them and doesn’t even include them in its own reports and resolutions.

The Euronest PA will never discuss the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and other territories of Azerbaijan by Armenia, because of an Armenian veto. It will also never use the word “occupation”, in fact legitimizing by absence of discussion an illegal action by Armenia, since one of the major objectives and strategies of the Euronest PA is to entangle Azerbaijan to the cooperation with Armenia without the liberation of the occupied territories and to achieve that we forget the fact of occupation. Otherwise, Azerbaijan is presented to the whole world as an undemocratic country by the Euronest PA and EP. Therefore, it is obligatory that the Euronest takes responsibility for implementing practical measures towards the liberation of Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia. The EP should understand that it’s impossible to build cooperation between the two Euronest countries until the territories of the one country occupied by the other country are not liberated.

Finally, this is a pointless exercise, not just for Azerbaijan, but in truth for all the participants to Euronest. Nothing that in the end is said or drafted in Euronest will become policy, not in the European Union and not in the Eastern Partners. The only reason why some MEPs truly support Euronest is to ensure a “consolation prize” for the EaP countries, which are ensured not to have the prospect of joining the European Union in the current, post-Brexit context.

The reality is that most European politicians are aware of these facts. However, as it is very difficult in the EU to assume criticism and nearly impossible to cancel programs which already have allocated budgets, Euronest will continue by virtue of inertia and all the European Parliament staff involved in maintaining it (and their jobs). Too much time and effort were already allocated and, more than this, over €1 billion has been so far spent by the European Union on this initiative. An admission that this was a mistake, that in fact Euronest has not solved any problems, nor helped in curbing Russian influence in the post-Soviet Eastern area of Europe, is unlikely to happen.

At the same time, there is no political will for the initiative to be a success either. Nor will the anti-Azerbaijani forces in Western Europe allow the forum to be a positive venue for Azerbaijan at any point. If the participation in Euronest PA is restored, a new wave of pressures, attacks, denigrations and defamations will begin, in the European Parliament and the Brussels media.

The restoration of the participation in Euronest PA cannot guarantee in any way that MEPs will be as a collective, objective and fair towards Azerbaijan.

In this regard, it is neither the moment, nor in any way useful to restore the participation in the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. Like Belarus, our country may continue its participation in EU’s EaP program without being a part of Euronest PA. Azerbaijan should work within EP committees and all political factions without being a Euronest PA member in order to achieve a better result in EP. Our country needs to build up a constant level of support and to create a much more positive environment before taking this step. The approach policy to European political families and organizations may have better results.

After all, overt and direct attempts have proven to be dangerous. The Ukrainian example has showed that close cooperation with Euronest, with the European Union even, does not mean in any way a real protection from threats and events.

With these kind of actions, with joining European political parties, with choosing what battles are important and which are not, we can ensure that the interests of Azerbaijan are promoted and protected in Europe.

Therefore, the re-opening of cooperation with Euronest is equal to re-opening the door to negative pressure and attacks by the European Parliament.

Elkhan Suleymanov