Azerbaijan, EU human rights feud escalates as COP29 looms

Relations between the European Union and one of its most important oil and gas exporters are on the rocks, with a war of words igniting just weeks before Western leaders fly to Azerbaijan for all-important climate change negotiations.
In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, European Social Rights Commissioner Nicolas Schmit said the United Nations-led COP29 talks in Baku next month must be “an opportunity for the Azerbaijani authorities to demonstrate the commitment to their international human rights obligations.”
Schmit called for the release of several political prisoners, including Gubad Ibadoghlu, who was nominated for the Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for his activism, and Bahruz Samadov, a peace activist facing treason charges. Others in the debate said Baku should free Armenian leaders captured during a war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year.
A number of MEPs went even further, calling for the EU to axe a deal with Azerbaijan to more than double natural gas purchases. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed the pact in 2022 to help Europe ditch Russian energy.
The agreement fuels human rights abuses and allows Russia to launder its fossil fuels through Azerbaijan, centrist French MEP Nathalie Loiseau alleged.
“We are actually purchasing Putin’s gas and oil,” the Renew lawmaker said. Loiseau’s allegations are similar to a charge Ibadoghlu, the imprisoned activist, also leveled.
In a fiery response on Wednesday, Azerbaijan’s foreign policy chief, Hikmet Hajiyev, hit back at both the Commission and the Parliament, which he said had been influenced by the country’s long-term rival, Armenia.
“Some of the discussions at the European Parliament reminds us of a theater of the absurd or a circus,” he told POLITICO in a statement. “The world has seen the shameful practice of corruption at this institution. Many of those loud speakers against my country are on the payroll of the Armenian lobby and the Armenian government’s PR and lobbying campaign” — a claim he made without evidence.
“I would also advise EU human rights commissioner to deal seriously with growing human rights problems in the European Union instead of preaching [to] others,” added Hajiyev, a top adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. “Calls for releasing Armenian war criminals who killed innocent Azerbaijani civilians are equal to releasing Nazi war criminals.”
Nongovernmental organizations have called for Western leaders to use COP29 to highlight a recent crackdown on journalists, activists and opposition figures in Azerbaijan. A Human Rights Watch report earlier this month warned that “an increasing number of civil society activists have left the country since November 2023, further diminishing the diversity of organizations and activists speaking up for human rights and challenging the government.”