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In an exclusive interview to Panorama.am Mr. Eduardo Lorenzo Ochoa, Director of the European Friends of Armenia (EuFoA) NGO speaks about the newly formed Nagorno Karabakh group in the European Parliament and about the framework based on which the group was formed.

Nvard Chalikyan: Mr. Lorenzo Ochoa, quite recently, with the assistance of the EuFoA, the first Nagorno-Karabakh Group was formed in the European Parliament, which aims to facilitate ties between Nagorno Karabakh and the European Parliament. Can you tell us more about how the group was formed? What is the background underpinning its creation?  

Lorenzo Ochoa: First of all I must say that the creation of this group is the result of long-term work and is not something spontaneous. Prior to the launching of the group several EU resolutions, documents and reports of the European Parliament, such as MEP Siwiec report 2011, MEP Poreba report 2012, MEP Kowal report (2014), the Council of the EU Conclusions for the South Caucasus and the ENP Progress Report for Armenia 2013 had been adopted. These documents from EU three main institutions encourage the EU officials to have contacts with representatives, civil society and democratic institutions of Nagorno Karabakh. Thus this group’s creation directly follows these mandates. 

Of course different contacts between the representatives of Nagorno Karabakh and the members of the European Parliament have also taken place within the past year and NK representatives have played a key role in the facilitation of ties and in the formation of this group. In particular, the contacts and the recent visit of the President of the Nagorno Karabakh Parliament Ashot Ghulyan, the representative of the people in Nagorno Karabakh, to Brussels has brought up a lot of sympathies among the members of the European Parliament. His visit and his efforts in pushing forward this idea and gathering MEPs interested in NK around this initiative has been fundamental and served as a catalyser for setting up this group.

N. C.: And what was the role of the EuFoA NGO in the formation of this group?

Lorenzo Ochoa: The core mission of the EuFoA is to try to put in touch and create synergies between those in Europe who are interested in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh and those in Armenia and NK who want to engage with the EU. So in this case our role has been to create awareness on both sides that this initiative was possible and that it actually follows the mandates that the EU institutions have been issuing especially during the last years. We also have an extensive network in Brussels and more specifically in the European Parliament that has contributed to the realization of this initiative.

N. C. As it has been announced, this is an informal working group. What is the actual status and function of an informal group in the EP? Does the EP have formal groups as opposed to informal ones?

Lorenzo Ochoa: All the groups formed in the European Parliament are the sole responsibility of the MEPs composing the group. All the EP members are welcome to form groups and work together on whatever issue they decide to work; it is their decision. Unlike national parliaments, the number of parliamentarians here is quite high (751), thus there is a wide diversity of groups and members who work on certain subjects, and formally the EP doesn’t interfere in the work of these groups. That is why the EP groups are often called informal groups; there are no formal groups as such, apart from the political groups, the political fractions.

N. C.: One of the stated goals of this group is to organize visits of European officials and parliamentarians to Nagorno Karabakh, which as you said stems from the EU mandate. At the same time we know that the Azerbaijani government blacklists all those foreigners who visit Nagorno Karabakh. Doesn’t this practice contradict the above-mentioned EU documents which advocate for stronger ties with Nagorno Karabakh?

Lorenzo Ochoa: This blacklisting first of all contradicts one of the key EU principles – free movement of people. It is contrary to the very essence of the philosophy of the EU. But more than that, all the three adopted reports of the EP that I mentioned encourage the EU officials to have contacts with authorities and societies of the broken-away territories of the Eastern Partnership (which obviously covers also Nagorno Karabakh). More specifically this is stated in the EU-Armenia and EU-Azerbaijan progress reports. The executive summary of the EU Armenia progress report states that the EU invites Armenia to “ensure unimpeded access for representatives of the EU to Nagorno-Karabakh”. Interestingly enough exactly the same sentence is reproduced in the EU Azerbaijan progress report (invites Azerbaijan to ensure access to Nagorno Karabakh). So one more time Azerbaijan is contradicting the EU also on this important matter.

N. C.: Do you think in practice this blacklisting can actually serve as an obstacle for the group to organize study visits to Nagorno Karabakh?

Lorenzo Ochoa: Honestly, the people here perceive it as an anachronism – a practice that is not accepted, that is somehow exotic nowadays. Can you imagine that Greece would close up its border with Turkey because of the problem of Northern Cyprus or that Southern Cyprus would blacklist anybody who would visit Northern Cyprus? This is very hard for the Europeans to understand; it is just inconceivable. As for the visits to Nagorno Karabakh as such I think time has shown that we have a committed group of members in the European Parliament who are not intimidated by this 19th or 18th century practice such as blacklisting and I don’t think this will be a major problem for the work of the group, eventually an additional motivation. Probably Mr. Frank Engel who is heading the group can also elaborate on this question.

N. C.: Mr. Lorenzo Ochoa, as we know the EU has a new leadership. Given Armenia’s integration path towards the Eurasian Union, what do you think are the perspectives of Armenia-EU future collaboration within the agenda of the new EU leadership?

Lorenzo Ochoa: Well, last week we clearly saw the stance of the new European Commission about Armenia with the signing of the EU assistance to Armenia, by which the EU is to provide 140-170 million Euro assistance to Armenia. The Minister of Economy of Armenia was in Brussels and I think together with the European Commissioner for ENP Johannes Hahn they signed quite a substantial package in terms of cooperation with the European Union. The document http://www.eufoa.org/uploads/FutureofEUAMRelations.pdf published by the EuFoA on the future of EU-Armenia relations also talks about this question. 

Despite the fact that Armenia is joining the Eurasian Customs Union there are still many fields of cooperation where Armenia and EU can work together. Armenia is a sovereign country and the EU is an international organization and it is up to them to decide what level of cooperation that they want to reach. Also in this regard I would recall the statement of the President of France when he visited Armenia and said that the EU must find an association agreement that fits Armenia and respects her international commitments. The same statement has been reproduced by the German Ambassador to Armenia as well as the Deputy Minister of the Foreign Affairs of Poland; these you know are not the smallest countries of the EU. 

N. C.: So even good economic cooperation between the EU and Armenia as a Eurasian Union member can still work.

Lorenzo Ochoa: Yes. Of course there will be some limitations when it comes to economic cooperation but it is still quite feasible. To bring just one example from international practice – both Brazil and Uruguay are members of Mercosur, which among other things is a customs union; nevertheless Brazil’s first trade partner and first investor is the EU and in the case of Uruguay it is the second. So, despite the fact that the country belongs to a customs union it still can have good relations with the EU, and Brazil and Uruguay are very good examples of that. In the case of EU-Armenia it is simply very important to well define these areas of cooperation as well as the new legal base and move forward. Obviously apart from economic sphere there are spheres such as institutional building, judicial reform, democracy and human rights – this is already a huge field of cooperation where there is no interference with trade relations of one country with third countries or international organizations.

I would however also like to add that the primary motivation for doing reforms should not be the signing of an association agreement or any other document with the EU; the primary motivation for doing reforms must be the fact that they are good for Armenia as such and in this regard nothing hinders Armenia from continuing these reforms simply because they are very good for the country.

Interview by Nvard Chalikyan