The wave of bilateral meetings and visits by the representatives of East European countries in the past weeks has shown the growing importance of this region for Azerbaijan’s foreign policy and the potential selection of these countries as a role model for Azerbaijan’s Euro-Atlantic integration.

On September 24-25, President Ilham Aliyev traveled to Romania to meet his Romanian counterpart Troyan Basescu, a number of other high level officials and to sign bilateral agreements between the two countries. President Aliyev also opened the Heydar Aliyev park in Bucharest and visited Ploeshti, considered by many as the oil capital of Romania. It was the fifth meeting of the Presidents in the last 2 years. Romania has great importance for Azerbaijan because it supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and provides supports in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Both sides have agreed to cooperate in the field of energy transportation with Romania being interested to host the Nabucco gas pipeline as well as ship Azerbaijani oil to European markets. A bi-party business forum was also held during the visit.

Similarly, the President of Croatia, Stjepan Mesic visited Baku on October 2-3 to meet President Ilham Aliyev and sign five agreements on bilateral cooperation. The Croatian head of state also met the speaker of Azerbaijani Parliament and the Prime Minister, and delivered a speech at Baku State University. He stated that Azerbaijan is the most dynamically developing country in the region, yet the bilateral relations with Croatia do not satisfy the needs of both countries. He expressed hope that the business forum between the two countries, held in Baku, will expand economic links and trade. It should be noted that President Aliyev also visited Zagreb this year and showed interest in strengthening links with this Balkan nation.

Two weeks ago, President Aliyev also visited Lithuania to extend Azerbaijan’s interest to this Baltic state on issues of bilateral cooperation in the energy and economic spheres. A Forum for Azerbaijani and Lithuanian businessmen was organized during the visit, a typical feature of any of President Aliyev’s visits in the past years. This, by itself, shows the heavy weight of the business and economic links in the foreign policy of Azerbaijan.

These three high-level visits coupled with the visits of Lithuanian Defense Minister Iosaz Olekas to Baku on October 3 and a high-level Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation’s visit to Hungary indicate the increasing cooperation between Azerbaijan and Eastern European countries. Next month, Bulgarian prime minister Sergey Stanishev will visit Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan, although not openly declaring its NATO and EU aspirations, nevertheless is interested to steadily and gradually benefit from this integration process to the Euro-Atlantic structures, and thus to learn from the experience of these states on these issues. All East European nations have so far showed willingness to partner up with Azerbaijan on energy issues as well as issues of regional security, military and economic projects, and political discussions on global as well as regional issues.

Energy projects play a particularly important role in the development of mutual interests between Azerbaijan and the East European region, because of the heavy dependence of the East European nations on Russian gas and oil. After the Ukraine and Belarus crises of the last two winters, European countries have been worrying about this dependence and the unreliability of the Russian energy supplies. Thus, they are keen to diversify their energy supplies, with Azerbaijani oil and gas being a primary alternative source of supply. Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan can also be potentially important players in the European energy markets, but their exports will also need to pass through Azerbaijan if they want to avoid the Russian route.

Security and military cooperation is another area of mutual interest, with Azerbaijan spending more than US$ one billion annually on its military budget, and East European countries having experience in military transformation from Soviet to NATO standards.

Azerbaijan, being on the crossroads of Europe and Asia tries to balance its foreign policy and develop equally strong links with European, East Asian and Middle Eastern regions. However, the national security doctrine, signed by President Aliyev in 2007, clearly indicate Euro-Atlantic integration as the ultimate goal of the foreign policy of the country, and sets tangible milestones for Azerbaijan’s partnership with European structures.