Why Azerbaijan may face the same fate as Russia in the Council of Europe

It looks like the Council of Europe is about to expel Azerbaijan.

It is unclear how soon this will happen and according to what scenario. However, the debates in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this week showed that most European players have united against Baku. Moreover, the Azerbaijani authorities are raising the stakes.

Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs deliberately makes participation in the Council of Europe impossible.

Read more about the situation in the article by Sergiy Sydorenko, the European Pravda editor – Europe is losing Azerbaijan: How Strasbourg prepares to punish Ilham Aliyev’s state.

The dispute between Strasbourg and Baku escalated ten months ago when the Azerbaijani authorities flatly refused to invite a PACE mission to observe the February presidential elections (Azerbaijan, as a member of the Council of Europe under monitoring, was obligated to do so).

In response, at its January session, the Assembly took the next step and threatened to impose political restrictions on Azerbaijan, and the country responded by exacerbating the conflict, making compromise impossible.

As a result, PACE applied the maximum punishment after emotional debates, refusing to confirm the credentials of Azerbaijani deputies for 2024.

In late August, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs unexpectedly announced sanctions against all European MPs who had voted for sanctions against Azerbaijan during the January session (seven months earlier).

This blacklist had been in place since January, and one parliamentarian had even been turned away at the border.

These openly confrontational actions by the Azerbaijani authorities have intensified the perception of the situation in the country, which has been deteriorating rapidly recently.

Although the legal issue centers around the refusal to invite PACE members to observe elections, the more significant problem is that elections in Azerbaijan, already far from democratic, have become an even greater farce.

The real reason parliamentarians are inclined to take tough measures against Azerbaijan is not because the country no longer meets the minimum democratic standards (that happened long ago) but because of its blatant defiance of the Council of Europe's demands and rules.

German parliamentarian Frank Schwabe warned that without real punishment for Azerbaijan, the Council of Europe could face a chain reaction.

The next round of this dispute is set to be held in late January 2025, when Azerbaijan will have the right to return to PACE and submit a new delegation. How it responds to the accusations, whether through dialogue or further conflict, will determine the future course of this situation.

But few seriously believe that after this year's deliberate escalation, Baku will return to normal cooperation, abolish the blacklist of European politicians, resume monitoring, and so on.

Irish parliamentarian Paul Gavan directly suggested initiating a special procedure to suspend or even expel Azerbaijan from the organisation if it refuses to make corrections.

Previously, Russia was kicked out from PACE.