2024-04-14 06:36:44
Only in 2023, Azerbaijan received 18.6 billion euros (about 20 billion dollars) for oil and gas supplied to the EU, which is a huge indicator from a purely financial point of view. For example, it is more than 5 times higher than in 2024. Azerbaijan’s military budget is about 3.8 billion dollars, or 14 times more than in 2024. About 1.4 billion dollars from the RA military budget. This indicator alone is enough to understand the EU’s role in Azerbaijan’s armament and aggressive policy. At the same time, the EU’s general dependence on Turkey and Azerbaijan for the purchase and transit of energy carriers puts the latter in significant dependence on Ankara and Baku, which certainly cannot be ignored by EU politicians when making decisions.
In 2023, Azerbaijan occupied an important position not only in the EU natural gas market, but also became one of the 10 largest suppliers of oil in the EU, almost equaling the indicators of the Russian Federation. In general, according to the Azerbaijani “Interfax” agency, which summarized its calculations based on Eurostat statistics, in 2023, Azerbaijan exported around 20.3 million tons of oil to the EU, which is 2.6% more than in 2022. compared to the same period.
The study of EU natural gas import indicators is particularly interesting in its geopolitical context. In particular, if the EU imported 156.8 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia in 2021, or 43.4% of its imports, in 2023, Russia provided only about 16% of EU imports, 51 3 billion cubic meters. If in 2021 it was difficult to consider Azerbaijan a serious competitor for Russia in the EU gas market, because the difference in volumes was huge: Russia sold about 18 times more gas to the EU, then in 2023 this difference became only 4 times. Of course, it should be emphasized that in order to ensure the export of its own gas to the EU, Azerbaijan itself imports gas from Russia for domestic consumption. However, if we take into account the works and medium-term plans carried out by Azerbaijan in the direction of the exploitation of new deposits, gas transit from Central Asia, we can record that Azerbaijan’s position in the EU natural gas market has the potential to be further strengthened in the near future.
On the other hand, in the context of the significant growth of Turkish influence in Azerbaijan after the 44-day war, it is more appropriate to consider the Azerbaijani factor in the EU gas market not separately, but the Turkish-Azerbaijani factor together. 2023 according to the data, about 12% of the gas supplied to the EU from non-European sources is imported through the territory of Turkey. Ankara’s aspirations to become a gas hub between Russia and the EU, on the other hand, efforts to bring Central Asian gas to Europe through its own territory, may significantly increase the importance of the Turkish-Azerbaijani factor in the EU natural gas market in the coming years.
In the case of both natural gas and oil, the Azerbaijani oil factor in the EU should be considered not separately, but together with the Turkish factor. Turkey is an important player not only in the supply of oil from Azerbaijan and Central Asia to the EU, but also through the territory of the latter, the transit of oil from Iraq (Kurdistan) to the EU is carried out. In general, the Azeri resources, the transit importance of Turkey in the supply of energy carriers from Central Asia and the Middle East to the EU, make the Turkish-Azerbaijani factor very weighty in the EU energy market, which certainly has an impact on EU policies.
The Armenian authorities, trying to make Brussels the main or only arbiter in the negotiations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, are consciously taking the negotiation process to a platform where the toolkit of influence of Baku and Ankara is much richer than that of Yerevan. In essence, the only “half-factor” of the influence of the current authorities of RA on the positions of the EU is anti-Russian, which is actively played by the latter. Although only the energy component of the Turkish-Azerbaijani toolkit of influence on EU policy was discussed, it is much richer, starting from the economic and ending with the geopolitical.
Full analysis here.