Trilateral Nikol Pashinyan, Charles Michel, and Ilham Aliyev meeting in Brussels © EU
Despite Baku’s concerns with this week’s decision to deploy a dedicated two-year European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA), and with political tensions still heightened over the continuing impasse on the strategic Lachin Corridor, there could be some hope on the not too distant horizon. Possibly.
Prior to the announcement of the establishment of EUMA, in private conversation and public posts, one concern of mine was that there had to be an underlying purpose to the civilian Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) mission just as there had been for the temporary two-month long European Union Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP) late last year.
EUMCAP had very definitely been deployed to assist with the European Union’s Charles Michel-facilitated trilateral talks with the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Brussels as well as the pressing need to demarcate the fragile and often volatile Armenia-Azerbaijan border. It was therefore imperative that EUMA be deployed for a similar purpose.
As I mentioned here and here, this was especially important given calls by some to use the deployment of EUMA to delay the signing of a long overdue peace treaty rather than to create an environment conducive to the signing of one. Judging from European Council Decision (CFSP) 2023/162, however, it would appear that the EU is also well aware of this.
The preamble to the decision, for example, specifically mentions agreements that were reached in Prague last year that coincidentally also gave birth to the earlier EUMCAP.
On 6 October 2022, on the occasion of the meeting of the European Political Community held in Prague, the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan confirmed their commitment to the Charter of the United Nations and to the Declaration agreed in Alma Ata on 21 December 1991, in which both States recognised each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Furthermore, the Council Decision also makes specific reference to the shaky normalisation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the need to negotiate and sign a peace treaty. It is anyone’s guess when the Michel-facilitated process can resume, but the EU Special Representative of the South Caucasus, Toivo Klaar, was in Yerevan on 23 January.
Anyway, some more key points from Decision 2023/162:
EUMA shall be part of the contribution by the Union, as an impartial and credible actor, in creating a safe and stable environment in conflict-affected areas in Armenia, within which improved human security and the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the ground will allow for further progress towards a potential peace agreement.
[…]
The strategic objective of EUMA shall be to contribute to decreasing the number of incidents in conflict-affected and border areas in Armenia, to reduce the level of risks for the population living in such areas and thereby to contribute to the normalisation of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the ground.
(a) For that purpose, the Mission shall contribute to confidence-building between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in ways that uphold its credibility as an impartial actor, by:
(b) contributing to human security in conflict-affected areas, inter alia by gathering information through ad hoc patrolling and reporting on situations where, due to direct or indirect consequences of the conflict, life and basic human rights are endangered;
(c) based on its activities under subparagraphs (a) and (b) and through its permanent and visible presence on the ground, contributing to building confidence between the populations of Armenia and Azerbaijan and, where possible, between the authorities of those countries, in support of peace and stability in the region.
[…]
Without prejudice to the chain of command, the Head of Mission shall act in close coordination with the Union’s delegation to Armenia and with the EUSR to ensure the consistency of Union action in Armenia; in particular, the Head of Mission shall receive political guidance from the Head of the Union’s Delegation to Armenia regarding relations with the authorities of Armenia and from the EUSR with respect to relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
[…]
In addition, without prejudice to the chain of command, the Head of Mission shall keep the Head of Delegation in Azerbaijan informed on the activities of the Mission and shall consult him or her on matters of relevance to Azerbaijan.
[…]
None of which means, of course, that the Charles Michel-facilitated talks between the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and the Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev, will resume so soon after they broke down in early December, but it also seems unlikely that the European Union would want to be dragged into a quagmire it might eventually regret.
Though the European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) in neighbouring Georgia has been operating since late 2008, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is considerably more volatile as recent events have demonstrated, and while the ‘status quo’ there is clearly in place, it most definitely is not sustainable when it comes to relations between Yerevan and Baku.
Meanwhile, as an aside, the full budget for EUMA remain unknown with only the figure of €8,103,590 announced for the first four months of its two year deployment. In contrast, EUMM in Georgia, had a budget of €44.8 million for its two year operation 2020-2022, but it also did not have the initial procurement costs associated with launching EUMA.
Update: 26 February 2023:
Writing for Euraktiv, Maili Negi and Tobias Pietz say that Dr Markus Ritter, head of the German Federal Police Headquarters in Stuttgart and former Head of the European Union Advisory Mission (EUAM) in Iraq, looks set to be the Head of Mission for the new European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA) due to start next month on 20 February.
Also of note, EUMA will be headquartered in Yeghegnadzor, Vayots Dzor region, and not Yerevan. There’ll naturally be field offices in Kapan, Goris, Jermuk, Martuni, and Ijevan. Meanwhile, it seems Azerbaijan did apparently, albeit reluctantly, ‘accept’ the mission. What’s most interesting from the Euroaktiv piece, however, is the following.
“In addition to patrolling, it is tasked with establishing (similar to EUMM Georgia) local communication channels and de-escalation mechanisms between the parties to the conflict. It will also support border demarcation and trilateral dialogue between the EU, Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve the conflict.”
It’s still unclear if this could extend to an Incident Prevention and Response Mechanism (IPRM) as is the case for EUMM in Georgia, but it’s something I’ve hoped for these past six or seven years or so. Anyway, for background on the European Union Monitoring Capacity (EUMCAP) and the European Union Mission in Armenia (EUMA), see my previous posts here.
