Baku 20° C
Interview of Report News Agency with EU Ambassador to Azerbaijan Kestutis Jankauskas.
This year, the celebrates its 10th anniversary. How would you estimate the achievements of this program over the years?
In order to understand the significance of this initiative we have to take a step back and look at a bigger picture. Allow me to briefly set the scene. Following the big bang enlargement in 2004 as well as Bulgaria and Romania's accession in 2007, the European Union has doubled the number of its members but also decreased geographic distance and established a new external border with Eastern partners. While the EU needed time to consolidate and fully grasp the new setup, external challenges kept piling up and Eastern neighbours sought ways to get closer to the EU in many ways.
Eastern Partnership program helped to focus the attention of the European Union on its Eastern European neighbourhood and to make it more secure, stable and prosperous. It offered six partner countries the platform to build and advance their bilateral relationships with the EU while promoting multilateral cooperation.
I would argue that without this program there would have been much less contacts between EU and Azerbaijan, between our people, much less cooperation, assistance programs and less possibilities.
Eastern Partnership program helped our countries to build more trust, to strengthen economies, connectivity, societies and governance. Inbuilt flexibility allowed various capitals to pursue their ambitions at different speed.
It has brought many tangible results to our people and societies. Since 2016 EU supported over 70,000 enterprises with over 2 bln. EUR and created 28,000 jobs in Eastern partner countries. Over 30,000 students benefited from Erasmus+ studies in the EU countries. For countries that wanted to get closer to the European Union, it provided the needed instruments, opened to people visa-free travel possibilities.
Eastern Partnership program has brought Azerbaijan closer to Europe than it was 10 years ago.
Our people got closer using visa facilitation agreement and ASAN service. During 10 years we have enhanced our road and rail connections and are finishing one of the most ambitious energy connectivity projects. EU is the biggest investor and biggest trade partner of Azerbaijan.
We are nearing the end of negotiations on the new partnership agreement which will provide basis for enhancing trade, connectivity and variety of sectorial reforms to the benefit of people. EU is supporting Azerbaijan's economic diversification and reforms sharing the latest technologies and best management practices.
We have ongoing and completed 48 twinning projects with 26 various institutions. We helped to develop capacity of the staff of ASAN and ABAD services. We are working to refurbish education, including vocational education and training. Our experts are helping to bring best practices in social security and labour market, provide sustainable basis for pension reform, modern taxation, to establish mandatory health insurance system, provide transparent and easy e-services, mediation system in justice, European standards in food-safety and environment, help for small family businesses, agriculture and rural areas.
Projects and dialogue in support of good governance, transparency, accountability and human rights aim at building modern and inclusive civil society.
It is difficult to list it all. I think Eastern partnership provided the framework for more mutual understanding and trust in EU-Azerbaijan relations laying foundation for future modern partnership.
Speaking of visits, the President and the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan are invited to attend events in Brussels dedicated to the 10th anniversary of Eastern Partnership on 13-14 May. There will be discussions on the achievements and on the future of our partnership. There will also be cultural, youth and civil society events and discussions.
Meanwhile we will be organising several events in Azerbaijan, and not only in Baku.
First of all, on Friday, 3 May, we are organising a conference dedicated to the Eastern Partnership. It will take place at the French-Azerbaijani University in Baku. The discussion on achievements of the Eastern partnership over the decade and its future perspectives will be discussed moderated by Ms. Amanda Paul from European Policy Centre with participation of EU and local experts – Mr. Vygaudas Usackas (Lithuania), Mr. LoukasTsoukalis (Greece), Mr. George Mchedlishvili(Georgia) and ZaurShiriyev (Azerbaijan). It will be a possibility not only to talk about achievements in Azerbaijan and EU-Azerbaijan relations, but also discuss common challenges that we Europeans are facing together.
This event will take place in the context of IMAGINE Euro Tolerance Festival 2019 which will take place from 1st until 14th of May already for a third year in a row. Brand of IMAGINE is already well known to Baku. This year our festival will be more varied and closer to the citizens, we will have new partners, new venues, new activities (like the launching concert in IcheriSheher Metro station on 1 May at 17:00). We will partner this year, among others, with European Lyceum for the performance of children. For the first time we will go to Ganja on 13-14 May with exhibition, concert, films and the conference. The program is published on the EU Delegation's website and also dedicated website. There will be several events taking place each day. I kindly invite all Azerbaijani friends to participate, to discuss tolerance and to enjoy wide diversity of our cultures together.
On the 21-22 May with all European embassies we are planning to go to Mingachevir and Ganja to meet with local people, authorities, youth and to present the projects that the EU is implementing in that region and beyond to the benefit of the people in Azerbaijan and the possibilities that will be available for our future cooperation. We call this event EU4YOU.
Last but not least, we are looking for the best ways to broadcast in Azerbaijan the concert that will take place in Brussels on 13th of May in famous BOZAR with participation of European performers and artists from all six Eastern partner countries.
This is the most popular question recently being asked! I fully understand and share the interest of people in Azerbaijan to have up-to-date, modern and comprehensive legal base for our future partnership. We all want to have it as soon as possible, but we also want that agreement to be as good, substantive and comprehensive as possible.
The negotiations are still ongoing. Work continues and the agreed text is growing. I can assure everybody that both sides are putting a lot of effort to finish the negotiations as soon as possible. Let's not guess "when", but let's keep working to make it happen.
Is there any progress in aviation agreement negotiations?
Yes, there is. We had very good consultation on draft aviation agreement in February this year when we had first ever EU-Azerbaijan High Level Transportation Dialogue in Baku.
I believe that during this visit our experts managed to reassure the Azerbaijani government representatives and to clarify our position regarding the outstanding issues. On top of that we are planning another visit of experts to Brussels in the beginning of May. I hope this will pave the way for a rapid resumption of the negotiations which, given the limited number of issues still under discussion, could be concluded very soon.
This agreement would bring Azerbaijani airlines, airports and airspace to a new level of integration with the EU and the world. The direct benefits are better connectivity (increase in the number of routes and frequencies) and lower fares. More travellers would bring bigger revenues. For example, since the signing of the agreement with Israel, traffic between Israel and the EU doubled and the number of direct connections tripled. Each year added one million more passengers travelling between Israel and the EU. The effects on national carriers were equally very positive: in Morocco, the business of national carriers grew by 60%; in Serbia – by over 100%. Last but not least, without this agreement Regional Transportation Hub project would not be complete.
