The European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia. The Monitoring Capacity in Armenia is made up of staff from EUMM in Georgia and financed from its budget © EUMM
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucasus last week published my brief article on the temporary European Union Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP) deployed to Armenia on its border with Azerbaijan in late October.
The European Union has deployed around 40 unarmed civilian monitors on the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan following serious military escalation on 12-13 September, that saw the latter strike and capture territory within the former, leaving nearly 300 dead on both sides. Though requested in September by Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, the decision to deploy the monitors came on 6 October at the meeting in Prague between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, European Council President Charles Michel, and French President Emmanuel Macron. Azerbaijan, however, did not consent to the mission’s presence on its side of the tense border, though it did agree to “cooperate with this mission as far as it is concerned”.
Formally approved by the EU member states on 17 October, the monitors have since started their short mission of only two months following the visit by an EU technical mission days earlier. Though some Armenians hoped for a longer and even a military presence, despite the EU being more known for its civilian missions, this was not unexpected. Indeed, on 29 October, Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar explained that the only way to deploy quickly would be to use some of its 200 monitors in the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in neighbouring Georgia. Moreover, the Armenian mission’s two-month duration would be funded from EUMM Georgia’s budget, currently at 22.4 million Euros per year, and will not be extended.
EUMM, also a civilian monitoring mission, was deployed in Georgia in the aftermath of the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war and monitors the country’s Administrative Boundary Lines (ABLs) with two other breakaway regions in the South Caucasus – Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Klaar, incidentally, was EUMM Georgia’s head in Tbilisi in 2013-14.
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Azerbaijan has said that it would like a peace treaty signed by the end of the year, and Armenia has tentatively agreed, but there are still many obstacles to overcome after more than three decades of hostility. Nonetheless, the West clearly views EUMCAP as a necessary instrument to help create a more conducive environment in which to reach such an agreement.
You can read the full article in English or Italian.
