Azerbaijan has accused the EU of treating the country as a “firefighter” by only committing to short-term gas deals despite asking the country to boost exports of the fuel to the bloc.
In 2022 Brussels and Baku struck a deal to increase Azerbaijan’s annual gas exports to the EU to 20bn cubic metres by 2027, compared with 11.8 bcm last year, as the bloc tried to wean itself off Russian gas after its invasion of Ukraine.
Baku needed the certainty of long-term contracts in order to raise the finance required to increase gas production in the Caspian Sea and meet the additional EU demand, Vaqif Sadiqov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the EU, told the Financial Times.
Despite “deep discussions” with the European Commission about how to meet the target, Sadiqov said EU operators were reluctant to sign long contracts because of the bloc’s ambition to curb its consumption of fossil fuels and reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Azerbaijan, which relies heavily on oil and gas revenues, is due to host the UN’s annual COP climate summit in November this year. Some diplomats and negotiators have privately expressed concern that the country was reluctant to address the question of how to shift away from fossil fuels.