Slovakia wants to be bridge between Azerbaijan and EU, Fico says

Slovakia wants to act as a bridge between Azerbaijan and the European Union, said Prime Minister Robert Fico as he made his first trip outside the EU since his re-election last year, visiting Azerbaijan in the hope of supporting the Slovak economy and strengthening bilateral relations.

“Slovakia wants to become a bridge between Azerbaijan and the European Union,” said Fico at a joint press conference on Tuesday, also attended by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, as he invited Aliyev to visit Bratislava.

“We also want to offer objective information on the situation in your country to the EU,” he added.

Azerbaijan’s president, for his part, said the visit “represents a new chapter in Slovakia-Azerbaijan relations” and hopes that the ”joint path will be very successful.”

“You (Azerbaijan) are a sovereign country, and when it comes to sovereignty, you are an exemplary nation,” Fico told Aliyev, adding that he would try to apply the same approach so that Slovakia could “also conduct a sovereign foreign policy.”

Aliyev also noted that Slovak companies have started operating in Nagorno-Karabakh: “We talked about the functioning of Slovak companies in the liberated territories of Karabakh. We have an intelligent village built by a Slovak company,” the president said.

“The work to be carried out by Slovak experts in the liberated territories, based on the ‘smart city’ and ‘smart village’ concepts, which is up to the most modern standards, will bring joy to the people who will return there,” the head of state added.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the early 1990s and 2000. In September last year, Azerbaijani forces launched an offensive, prompting thousands of Karabakh Armenians to flee to Armenia.

Cutting off from the Russian gas

On the state visit, Fico was accompanied by Slovak Economy Minister Denisa Saková, Defence Minister Robert Kaliňák and Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár, as well as several Slovak businessmen.

Bratislava and Baku discussed new enhanced cooperation across various sectors, including defence and energy industry.

“Right now, Azerbaijan exports gas to eight countries. I hope that Slovakia will become the ninth,” Aliyev said in a press conference.

Saková agreed that Slovakia would “make every effort to import gas from Azerbaijan to Slovakia so that we can diversify supplies and cut ourselves off from Russian gas.”

She said, “We believe that we will be able to establish cooperation in the field of gas supplies to Slovakia and Eastern and Central Europe.”

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also turned to Azerbaijan in July of the same year, proposing a deal to increase natural gas imports and support the expansion of a pipeline.

She did this to find alternative natural gas sources to reduce the bloc’s dependence on Russian energy.

(Natália Silenská | Euractiv.sk)

Read more with Euractiv

Puigdemont to return to Spain after Catalan elections, doesn’t rule out separatist alliance

Former Catalan president and leader of the right-wing separatist party JxCat, Carles Puigdemont, confirmed on Tuesday that he would return to Catalonia after the regional elections even if the police arrest him, as he did not entirely rule out a possible alliance of ideologically opposed separatist forces.