This is one of the collateral effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022: To reduce its heavy dependence on Russian gas and diversify its supplies, the European Union (EU) signed a new gas agreement with Azerbaijan in July 2022. The aim was for this country on the fringes of Europe and Asia to double its gas exports to the EU by 2027. The target is at least 20 billion cubic meters per year (compared to 8 billion in 2021). It would replace a small proportion of Russian deliveries, previously accounting for around 45% of European imports.
This agreement is now being criticized by some Europeans following Azerbaijan's offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh – leading to the fall of the self-proclaimed republic on September 20 and the exodus of over 100,000 Armenians from the enclave, in what Armenia regards as "ethnic cleansing." On Thursday, October 5, the European Parliament adopted by a large majority a text demanding the "suspension" of the gas agreement and calling for "targeted sanctions" against the Azerbaijani state.
"Is buying gas from Baku any less reprehensible than buying it from Moscow?" asked François-Xavier Bellamy, one of the leaders of the Les Républicains (French right-wing, conservative) party and a supporter of Armenia, before the vote. France's new Senate vice-president, Communist Pierre Ouzoulias, also denounced "the game of appalling realpolitik." "The signature affixed by Ilham Aliev [the Azerbaijani president] must be morally questioned," he said.
At the signing of the agreement, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, posed alongside the authoritarian leader, who has been in power for 20 years. She expressed her willingness to "strengthen [the] existing partnership" in the name of "stable and reliable supplies." At the time, this statement sparked outrage in Armenia and among the diaspora. That anger is even greater today.
Azerbaijan's share of European gas supplies is still modest but growing. It represented around 3% of total EU gas imports in 2022, compared with 2% in 2021. The European Commission expects a share "equivalent" to this order of magnitude for 2023, it said on September 20.
"It's Azerbaijan that depends on the European Union, not the other way around," said Ambassador Tigran Balayan, Armenia's representative to the EU. Gas imports from the European Union earned Azerbaijan €15.6 billion in 2022, according to data provided to Le Monde by Eurostat. This is four times more than in 2021, mainly due to soaring gas prices, but also to higher volumes delivered. "The European Union is the main market for Azerbaijani gas exports, ahead of Turkey and Georgia," confirmed Giovanni Sgaravatti, an analyst for the Belgium-based Bruegel think-tank. Sales are mainly destined for Greece, Italy, and Bulgaria. Conversely, according to the French Ministry of Energy Transition, France does not import gas from Azerbaijan.
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