EU monitoring mission vehicles © Toivo Klaar on Twitter
Following the arrival of a technical assessment team to Armenia, a monitoring mission from the European Union this week started patrolling the country’s border with Azerbaijan. The decision to deploy the 40 or so civilian monitors has been widely welcomed and applauded, but it is important to realise what it is and what it isn’t. To begin with, for now at least, it is not an indefinite presence in Armenia with a fixed term of just two months only. That might seem short to many, but it’s also important to realise why.
First, though the request to deploy the monitoring team, now officially called the European Union Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP) in Armenia, was made in September, the decision to do so wasn’t taken until the Prague meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macon, and European Council President Charles Michel on 6 October. This decision was officially approved by the foreign ministers of EU member states on 17 October.
In just 10 days, the mission is now functioning, leading some to marvel at the speed at which it did. However, it is important to note that EUMCAP is not only made up of monitors from the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia, but is also financed from EUMM’s €22.4 million per year budget. It remains unknown whether EUMCAP would have been able to deploy so quickly were it not for the presence of EUMM in Georgia. Recruitment, procurement, and logistics would likely have been a significant problem otherwise.
It took around six weeks for EUMM to deploy 200 monitors in Georgia following the August 2008 ceasefire with Russia.
An immediate challenge for the EU monitoring mission will be short-term procurement and the secondment of sufficient civilian monitors from EU countries. Even so, I’ve worked with @EUMMGeorgia in the past so value what even a short term Armenia-Azerbaijan border mission could do. https://t.co/aX1gkjo3i5
— Onnik J. Krikorian (@onewmphoto) October 7, 2022
Another reason for the two months duration is quite possibly because the timescale for a possible EU-brokered peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, also driven by the US, is set for the same time period. EUMCAP is intended to bring stability to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and also inform decision makers in Brussels while the border delimitation process is underway, again in the same time period. Though the civilian monitoring mission has little power, experience from Georgia shows it can achieve the lessening of tensions.
Not to say, however, that EUMCAP’s presence guarantees peace on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border while a deal is hammered out. Indeed, even in Georgia, EUMM has been unable to prevent the policy of ‘creeping annexation’ employed by Russia in another of the region’s three breakaway territories, South Ossetia. Nonetheless, and while Azerbaijan did not agree to EUMCAP deploying on its side of the border, that the decision was made in Prague and that Baku agreed to cooperate with it when necessary is encouraging.
It is highly unlikely that EUMCAP would deploy if Brussels perceived that there would be an immediate threat to the safety and security of mission personnel.
“EU monitors in 🇦🇲 set off on their first patrol. For the next two months, the EU Monitoring Capacity will monitor the situation on the Armenian side of the 🇦🇲/ 🇦🇿 border to build confidence and to contribute to the border commissions” @EUMCAP pic.twitter.com/fuYKQ8xjs6
— EUSecurityDefence (@EUSec_Defence) October 26, 2022
It is therefore important to note that EUMCAP has a clear task at hand that appears directly linked to the process of border delimitation and even the signing of a peace deal by Baku and Yerevan that is anticipated, but admittedly not guaranteed, by the end of the year. Indeed, this is not so much the EU solely investing in Armenia as some have argued but rather, and perhaps more likely, an investment in supporting the Brussels facilitated peace process.
Indeed, even the Armenian Prime Minister has said that he does not see any need to seek to extend the mission unless circumstances dictate. Moreover, given the lack of its own budget and an actual mandate as a European Union Monitoring Mission in Armenia, as opposed to a European Union Monitoring Capacity in Armenia, such a decision would require a more involved European Union process and budgeting for such a mission as well as recruiting its own personnel and procuring equipment for this specific task.
That is not out of the realms of possibility, however, but there is another important point here. It is imperative that EUMCAP is not seen in some circles simply as a way to avoid or defer a much needed peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan. Instead, EUMCAP can help facilitate this process by providing a vital confidence building component to the process when it is most necessary and for that a lot of credit is not just deserved by Brussels, but particularly by the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in Georgia.
Without it, and the fine balancing act that was no doubt required to ensure the Administrative Boundary Lines (ABLs) in Georgia could still be monitored effectively, it is possible that EUMCAP would not even be possible – in the short term at least. This is relevant given many question marks over hopes that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) could, especially at a time when that body is internally riven because of Ukraine and subject to significant budgetary pressures and the need to seek extra-budgetary finances.
Suffice to say, EUMCAP is therefore very welcome indeed.
