End of the “Greater Europe” project: Why Azerbaijan's exit from PACE reflects global changes

On Wednesday evening, PACE officially "punished" Azerbaijan by suspending its participation in the assembly for 2024. It was an unprecedented step, even compared to the sanctions imposed on Russia in 2014-2015. But the suspension, which may at first glance seem like a serious blow to a nation's future plans and prospects, is actually more akin to a mutual divorce - and a long-awaited one at that!

State-run media outlets in Azerbaijan explicitly mention the nation's need to leave the Council of Europe, and local politicians have hinted at their agreement. In fact, Azerbaijan's shift in foreign policy is not an anomaly, but part of a larger, worldwide policy shift that spells the end of an era - the era of integration into Greater Europe.

Now, we are seeing greater disintegration and "fracturing" on the continent. For the last 20 to 30 years, all countries in the region had made a great effort to cooperate with each other.

Even states which were the antithesis of the "European ideal" at the beginning of the globalisation trend, such as those with dictatorial regimes, invested significant amounts of money in the hopes that core European nations and the Western world as a whole would increasingly consider them "part of the club". But now, the tide of integration is retreating. Leaders who demonstrate their nation's "independence from Europe" now garner much more favour with their constituents.

And states located between the traditionally-defined "East" and "West" now have to choose what group they would rather belong to. Azerbaijan has made that choice, and will possibly finalise its departure from the Council of Europe in the near future. Turkiye's decisions will be pivotal in determining how this political shift plays out.

And it looks like Ankara has chosen Europe. The Turks are not convinced by the arguments their Azerbaijani brethren make for walking their chosen path, and don't seem eager to follow them down it. However, the transformation of the Council of Europe is not yet complete. In the wake of the Soviet Union's rapid collapse, and the end of the Cold War between it and the Western world, the European continent and, to a lesser extent, other parts of the globe found themselves in a new reality - one without a natural common enemy.

Western leaders believed that this would bring about a new paradigm of peace, in which wars and conflicts would essentially be obsolete, at least in Europe. The atmosphere of confrontation in the region transformed into an atmosphere of cooperation. This approach benefited everyone from a financial standpoint.

Defence spending, especially by Western countries, decreased across Europe, freeing up substantial funds for economic growth. Eastern states declared their alignment with the West in exchange for aid and financial investment.

And so, governments and leaders of nations east of the European core, even authoritarian ones, willingly "played along". Syria is a prime example of how far-reaching this ideal once was, and how the benefits of its implementation were sometimes only skin deep.

In the 2000s, after Bashar al-Assad came to power, the state invested heavily into promoting the narrative of its pro-Western aspirations because Assad had lived and studied in the West. Numerous puff pieces in the media, extensive interviews with Assad and his wife and Syria's participation in international events positioned the country as an aspiring member of the civilised world, allowing the country's GDP to increase by a factor of 2.5 over the span of seven years - a very high rate of growth. But no amount of journalistic puffery could magically transform Assad from a dictator into a democratically-minded Western politician, and the repression of citizens was overlooked in international forums.

With the bloody and ultimately unsuccessful suppression of several protests by the government in 2011, the country plunged into a civil war. As part of this "all for one and one for all" mentality of cooperation, the Council of Europe experienced explosive growth. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the organisation's borders essentially matched those of the "collective West" - a term used by Russian media for the group of European nations that are EU and/or NATO members.

For example, Turkiye had been a member of the Council of Europe since 1950, while no state from the "socialist bloc" was included. Amidst the weakening and collapse of the USSR, ten states joined the Council of Europe almost immediately and simultaneously. Practically all of them were within the region traditionally considered "culturally European" and would go on to become members of the EU.

Then the aforementioned "engagement policy" would come into play. Strasbourg decided to welcome all states, be they democratic or dictatorial, stable or shaky, liberal or authoritarian; it didn't matter -  the idea at the time was that when blessed with strong economic growth and integration into the new, globalised world, a nation's transition to Western-style liberal democracy was inherent and inevitable. Belarus, ruled then as now by Alexander Lukashenko, was the only exception due to its continued use of the death penalty, the abolition of which seemed to be the only hard requirement Strasbourg wouldn't budge on.

Whilst this mentality worked with some nations like Ukraine, it turned out not to be a one-size-fits-all solution, with change still having to come from within. Russia, for example, didn't become more democratic after joining the Council of Europe in 1996. In 2022, it was expelled from the organisation.

Another vivid example of failure is Azerbaijan.

Although no analogies drawn in the field of international politics are without caveats, Azerbaijan faced similar issues to Syria, albeit on a smaller scale and, thankfully, without the ensuing tragic consequences. Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe in 2001 - much later than other countries in the region - and seemed to be all show and no go when it came to the integration process. Real reforms were eschewed in favour of so-called "caviar diplomacy", a method through which Azerbaijan successfully increased its lobbying clout by currying favour with European politicians, as detailed in the article "Money, Sex, Caviar and 17 MPs: What we know about PACE's large-scale bribery scheme" (Ukrainian version).

A few years ago, however, the European policy of "absolute engagement" slowed down. And then it was reversed. The rules of the world rarely change overnight, but rather as part of a long process.

Azerbaijan's recent expulsion from PACE, though executed swiftly, was no exception, with the decision to take such an action not being made on a whim. The scandalous revelation that Azerbaijan was building a network of corrupt politicians in Europe prompted people to take a closer look at the situation inside the country; they came to the realisation that political repression, a lack of media freedom and other issues continued unabated. The possibility of repercussions, including suspension from PACE, had been publicly discussed since 2017, when special proceedings were initiated against Azerbaijan for its systemic non-compliance with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.

But the story continued in late 2023, when Azerbaijan failed to invite a PACE delegation to observe a snap presidential election. By not doing so, they broke a symbolic but firmly held tenet in the rules of the organisation, and brought upon themselves their expulsion from the group. The irony is that Aliyev didn't even need to resort to underhanded tactics such as holding elections under the radar.

Thanks to Azerbaijan's recent victory in the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the president was riding a wave of genuine popularity, and would have undoubtedly won the election fair and square.

Nonetheless, Baku decided to slap PACE in the face. And the group responded. At the beginning of the PACE winter session, all previous issues were revisited, such as Azerbaijan's aforementioned obstruction of observer delegations and continuing systemic human rights issues, leading to the imposition of sanctions against the country.

During discussions in Strasbourg, Azerbaijani MPs only escalated the confrontation without seeking compromise. The Azerbaijani delegation announced its withdrawal from PACE before the hearings, without waiting for a decision. The assembly subsequently declared Azerbaijan "expelled" on their end, in spite of the country already withdrawing voluntarily, after the delegation had walked out of the room.

PACE is a subgroup of the Council of Europe, and as they spelled out the sanctions, the MPs emphasised that Azerbaijan remains a member of the Council of Europe as a whole and is obliged, among other things, to comply with the ECHR decisions.  It is highly likely, though, that this may change.  When the leader of the Azerbaijani delegation, Samad Seyidov, made a statement about the nation's "voluntary withdrawal" from PACE, European Pravda requested clarification as to whether the possibility of leaving the organisation altogether was being considered.

Seyidov would not answer either way, but noted that the atmosphere in Strasbourg was "unacceptable", and that it made no sense for Azerbaijanis to work there. The statement included words implying that sanctions against the delegation would cause "grave and irreversible consequences for the Council of Europe as a whole." Azerbaijan's state-run media outlets have published articles asking "Does Azerbaijan need the Council of Europe?", unanimously maintaining that the Council of Europe itself is to blame for Russia's exit in 2022 and that it is time for Azerbaijan to follow suit.

It cannot be ruled out that a decision to terminate or suspend Azerbaijan's membership in the Council of Europe will be announced very soon.

However, Azerbaijan is indeed benefiting less and less by continuing to be a member. The days of such "broad cooperation" being profitable for nations that don't uphold their end of the bargain - Azerbaijan having no plans to transition to full democracy, for example - ended with the death of the "absolute engagement" ideal. In the event of Azerbaijan's withdrawal from the Council of Europe, Turkiye will automatically become an outsider state within the council.

In Turkiye, democracy is much more robust than in Azerbaijan, but whether the country wants to maintain such a specific role is uncertain. Throughout the week, the Turks remained silent, refusing to comment on the pressure placed upon their partner Azerbaijan. Only three MPs spoke, including an MP from the leading Turkish party, Zeynep Yildiz, who read a prepared speech.

She didn't question the claims against Azerbaijan, and although she called upon colleagues to make an exception and keep Azerbaijan for the sake of dialogue, her tone was not harsh or uncompromising and her message contained no accusations against the Council of Europe. Of course, this does not guarantee that Turkiye will never reconsider its membership in the organisation, but currently, there appears to be no such danger. Ankara has decided not to follow Azerbaijan's footsteps for now, and to remain in the "European realm."

Sergiy Sydorenko

Editor, European Pravda

From Strasbourg

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