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<figcaption class="sc-536eff7b-0 FPsqq">EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas met President Aliyev in Baku last April</figcaption>
Aliyev has justified arresting journalists by the need to “protect the media landscape from external negative influences”, accusing reporters of “illegally receiving funding from abroad”.
He has also long accused international organisations of bias and meddling in domestic politics, and the Baku offices of the UN, the International Red Cross Committee and the BBC have all been ordered to shut down.
EU policy has in effect given Aliyev “a free hand”, says Eldar Mamedov, a former Latvian diplomat who served as foreign policy adviser to the European Parliament’s Social Democrat group.
“The repression, arrests of dissidents, bloggers, and opposition voices have long strained Baku-Brussels relations,” he told the BBC. “Since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, this issue virtually disappeared from the agenda.”
The European Union rejects the allegation.
“[The EU] is concerned by the shrinking civic space in [Azerbaijan],” a spokesman told the BBC, and has called on Baku “to release all those arbitrarily detained for exercising their fundamental rights”.
“The EU has consistently raised its concerns at all levels, both in public and in private,” including during Kaja Kallas’s visit to Baku, he added.
The EU wants to diversify where it gets its gas, to avoid being dependent on a single supplier such as Russia.
Azerbaijan is far from being the biggest player, as its overall share in EU natural gas imports remains a modest 4.3%, despite an uptick in supplies.
But the share is much higher in some member states connected to the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline from Azerbaijan. Up to 40% of Bulgarian natural gas imports come from Azerbaijan, and for Italy and Greece it is 15%.
President Aliyev has other benefits to Europe besides gas.
He has consistently supported Ukraine’s territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s invasion – a rare stance among ex-Soviet states seen by the Kremlin as allies.
Although Azerbaijan has not imposed sanctions on Russia, it has supplied Ukraine with humanitarian aid.
Baku’s relations with Moscow have taken a dive in recent months.
An Azerbaijani Airlines plane crashed with the loss of 38 lives last December – apparently shot down by mistake by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.
The crisis then deepened following the deaths of two Azerbaijani men in Russian police custody.
By openly challenging Russia, Aliyev has sought to take on a larger role in a region traditionally dominated by Moscow, experts say. But he also presents himself to the West as an opponent of Vladimir Putin.
“Azerbaijan has pocketed the attention and they played it pretty well. They are seeing that all sides want to be friends with them and they are making use of that in all directions,” the senior EU diplomat told the BBC.
