EU looks to autocracies in search for energy

As gas supplies from Russia dwindle and the summer heatwave is soon to be replaced by the winter cold, Europe is looking for alternative energy supplies.

However, from the United Arab Emirates to Azerbaijan, alternative energy sources for European energy are set to come from countries with long-running human rights concerns and prevalent issues with democracy.

These concerns are often forgotten during the energy talks between high-ranking EU officials and foreign representatives.

United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan's is on a state visit to France from Monday to Tuesday.

This is the first official visit abroad by the Emirati president and he was received by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, with the Élysée choosing the "state visit,” the highest form of reception of a foreign head of state.

On Monday evening, the two countries concluded an energy agreement to secure French energy supplies. The partnership also aims to "identify joint investment projects in France, the United Arab Emirates or elsewhere in the world in the fields of hydrogen, renewable energy or nuclear energy," the ministry of energy transition explained.

Sébastien Boussois, a researcher in Euro-Arab relations associated with the Université Libre de Bruxelles, told EURACTIV France that "this reflects an extremely strong relationship, first and foremost military and strategic," but also "a long-standing economic, political, diplomatic and strategic relationship between the two countries."

On 15 May, shortly after his re-election for a second term, Macron attended the funeral of Khalifa Bin Zayed, the president's brother and predecessor at the head of the federation.

With this type of reception and relationship, "France and Europe are tipping over into realpolitik,” said Boussois. According to him, faced with the need "to diversify our resources as much as possible, especially energy resources," France "is more interested in its energy sovereignty than in human rights issues."

Indeed, France and the Emirates do not share the same positions on relations with Syria. "The Emirates call for the normalisation of relations with Bashar al Assad and have been violating all international sanctions for years,” explains Boussois. Along with Russia, the UAE is one of the only states calling for this normalisation, while France is opposed to it.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement that "in the United Arab Emirates, activists, lawyers, teachers, students, and people considered critical are arrested, prosecuted, and detained.”

Furthermore, many crimes carry the death penalty and it is recognised as a "not free" authoritarian state.

Azerbaijan

However, France is not the only EU country looking for energy supplies from partners with less than perfect human rights track records.

On Monday, the EU signed a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan, after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and energy Commissioner Kadri Simson travelled to meet with the country’s autocratic ruler President Ilham Aliyev in Baku.

The meeting in the Azerbaijani capital will be followed by a so-called “Cooperation Council” on Tuesday, where the two partners are set to “review the overall relations and discuss potential areas of mutual interest for cooperation in the future.”

Under the new agreement, fossil-fuel-rich Azerbaijan pledged to double gas deliveries to the EU via the Southern Gas Corridor to at least 20 billion cubic metres annually by 2027.

In an effort to shift away from Russian fossil fuels as fast as possible, Azerbaijan is already now increasing deliveries of natural gas to the EU, from 8.1 billion cubic metres in 2021 to an expected 12 bcm in 2022.

Meanwhile, human rights issues seem to be completely absent from the meetings focusing on securing more energy as fast as possible.

Asked by EURACTIV if during a May meeting between the bloc’s energy chief Simson and other senior officials and representatives of Baku the EU raised the issue of ongoing human rights concerns in the country, an EU official said “this dedicated meeting was specifically focused on energy cooperation.”

“The EU systematically raises human rights issues in relevant dialogues with Azerbaijan at all levels and will continue to do so,” they added.

Pressed if the Commission or the EU’s diplomatic arm, the EEAS, have a specific mechanism to ensure that the increased flow of European money to Azerbaijan to pay for gas, the official said “the EU does not exercise control over the spending of trade revenues of a third country from legitimate commercial oil and gas operations with EU Member States.”

In its latest country report from 2021, rights watchdog Amnesty International said “there was no accountability for violations committed during the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and its aftermath.”

“Persecution and harassment of government critics continued. Peaceful protests were violently broken up. Arbitrary restrictions continued to cripple the work of human rights defenders and NGOs. Gender-based violence and torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread,” it added.

Also not mentioned was the Azerbaijani Laundromat scandal, where an international journalistic investigation found that almost $3 billion was siphoned through European banks and companies and was used to pay off European politicians in an attempt to whitewash the country's reputation and lobby in their favour.

Human rights: missing

There is not a single mention of human rights, values or democracy in the EU’s new external energy policy from May, the international dimension of the bloc’s larger REPowerEU plan to move away from Russian fossil fuels in the wake of Moscow’s devastating invasion of Ukraine.

Asked if this is coherent with the EU’s 2020-2024 action plan on human rights and democracy globally, the EU official said that while the new strategy “focuses on energy and does not refer explicitly (for reasons of brevity) to human rights,” it includes a reference to “a just and inclusive energy transition” in line with the UN’s sustainable development goals.

(Davide Basso | EURACTIV.fr, Vlad Makszimov | EURACTIV.com)