MEP points to wider Polish backing for Azerbaijan

The resolution sailed through with 491 votes in favour.

It spoke of an “unjustified military attack” by Azerbaijan on the ethnic Armenian exclave of Nagorno-Karabakh on 19 September.

It also accused Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev of “ethnic cleansing” after some 100,000 Armenians fled his armed forces.

“The hospitals … are not functioning, the medical personnel left, the water board authorities left, the director of the morgue also left,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Reuters on Tuesday, speaking of the Nagorno-Karabakh capital, Stepanakert.

“So this scenario, the scene is quite surreal,” the ICRC said.

Out of the nine no-voters in Brussels on Thursday, three MEPs from the eurosceptic Identity and Democracy (ID) group voted not because of Azerbaijan’s actions, but because ID felt EU parliament foreign-policy resolutions were “stupid” in principle, an ID spokesman told EUobserver.

This put Poręba, who defended Baku on substance, in an even smaller minority, politically speaking.

“In terms of today’s voting, in my opinion, the resolution is extremely one-sided and takes into account the arguments of only one side of the conflict,” he said by email.

The other no-voters were Latvian socialist Andrew Ameriks, Bulgarian Christian Democrat Asim Ademov, former Romaninan president Traian Băsescu, Dutch far-right MEP Marcel De Graaff, and Bulgarian liberal Ilhan Kyuchyuk.

They didn’t immediately reply to EUobserver’s questions.

Most of Azerbaijan’s EU friends also kept a low profile in a parliament debate in Brussels on 20 September, when nobody took the floor in Aliyev’s defence.

Meanwhile, Poręba was among a handful of MEPs who visited Nagorno-Karabakh with the help of Aliyev’s EU embassy in the buildup to his attack.

Ameriks, who also voted no on Thursday, also went on trips there.

But the other two who visited the region — Slovenian Christian Democrat Franc Bogovič and German liberal Engin Eroglu — backed the Aliyev-critical text in what looked like a change of heart.

The EP motion also called for “suspension of all imports of oil and gas from Azerbaijan to the EU in the event of military aggression against Armenian territorial integrity”.

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Imports from Azerbaijan to the EU soared by 40 percent last year, even though they still accounted for for just three percent of Europe’s need.

MEPs’ resolutions are non-binding on EU countries, which take decisions on sanctions by consensus.

But the EU foreign service has drafted proposals for Azerbaijan sanctions, according to Reuters, in a move which indicates a groundswell of support from influential member states, including the Netherlands.

These include a halt to high-level meetings and, potentially, targeted blacklists.

“In case serious human rights violations are committed [against Armenians], restrictive measures against individuals responsible for such violations could be envisaged,” the draft EU proposal said.

For its part, the European Commission had cultivated closer ties with Aliyev prior to his latest attack in its search for more non-Russian gas.

But as the EU wonders how to handle him if he uses further violence, Poręba gave an insight into Polish thinking on the issue.

The MEP, from the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said: “Former Polish president Lech Kaczyński, whose policy I admire, treated relations with Azerbaijan as strategic in the dimension of energy security of Poland and Europe”.

“Poland is building its position in this region. For example, next week a representative office of 20 leading Polish companies will be opened in Baku,” he added.

The nationalist-populist PiS is fighting re-election on 15 October and has larded its campaign with a Poland-first message, right down to bashing even Ukrainian refugees.

And even if Poręba stood out as the only PiS euro-deputy who voted no, the abstention list told a tale of Polish quietism on Armenia’s national tragedy.

It also indicated Poland might not be willing to back any EU sanctions against its “strategic” friend.

The list of Polish ruling-party MEPs who sat on the fence of what the vast majority of Europeans saw as “ethnic cleansing” included former PiS prime minister Beata Szydło and two former foreign ministers, Anna Fotyga and Witold Waszczykowski — in another example of the Poland-first approach.