Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-04-17-Speech-2-190-000"
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"en.20120417.19.2-190-000"2
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"Mr President, the European Union is, at present, in negotiations with Armenia and Azerbaijan concerning association agreements. This is the first time that Parliament has had an opportunity to evaluate these talks and give the Commissioner and the whole Commission feedback.
Azerbaijan is an important partner for the EU and its Member States. It supplies EU countries with energy, and other products too, of course; but it is especially important for us as far as energy security is concerned. The benefits are obviously mutual, which is why these negotiations are being held. Let us also hope that the association agreements will bring stability and, at some stage, even eventual peace in this region.
These talks have obviously been overshadowed by the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Unfortunately, association agreement negotiations will not be able to find a solution to the greatest cause of instability in the region. That is the task of the Minsk Group. Let us hope that our negotiations do not in any way cause problems for those talks. I do not suppose that that will be the case, anyway.
I would like to see the work of the Minsk Group accelerated. In recent times, it has come up with hardly anything. Of course, it has to be admitted that the parties in the dispute, Armenia and Azerbaijan, need to show greater political will, to achieve a peace agreement between the countries.
Commissioner, the subjects being discussed during these negotiations include not only energy and economic issues, but many others as well. Human rights have a very essential role. The economy cannot be developed, and neither can cooperation, unless human rights are acknowledged and respected.
Regrettably, in the matter of human rights, it has to be said that there are still major shortcomings. Even today, we have received news that people have been detained and house-to-house searches have been carried out without a warrant of any kind. Neither Parliament nor the Commission is able or willing to close its eyes to violations of this kind. We require Azerbaijan, which is a member of the Council of Europe, to comply with the human rights agreements to which it has committed itself. It still has much to do in this area.
The Eurovision Song Contest in Baku is another poignant issue, to some extent. It is an honour for Azerbaijan. Like all the other countries that have won the competition, Azerbaijan wants to do the job honourably. It has been proposed, however, that the contest should be boycotted. I myself am not in favour of that. I visited a school and asked young people what their opinion was of that, without saying what I myself thought. They wondered why we should boycott the competition if we wanted to hold the association agreement negotiations and work together.
We have to focus attention on human rights. I hope that youth and student exchange programmes will be something in which the EU will invest. In the very same way that Azerbaijan itself has ..."@en1
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