On April 18, 2012, the European Parliament (EP) adopted two resolutions in the context of the negotiations for the new Association Agreements with Armenia and with Azerbaijan. European Friends of Armenia hails that the EP prevailed its core values for the Eastern Partnership, especially on a continued democratization and a balanced approach to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The report is particularly supportive for Armenia but also reminds of the remaining homework. Below we provide a summary of the most relevant points, EuFoA reports.

On Nagorno Karabakh, the EP strongly supports ALL points of the Minsk Group’s Madrid Principles as a package, including for the first time explicitly “international security guarantees that would include a genuine multinational peacekeeping operation in order to create suitable conditions for the future legally-binding free expression of will concerning the final status of Nagorno Karabakh”.

Referring to Nagorno Karabakh, MEP Dr Andrey Kovatchev, member of the Europe-Armenia Advisory Council, said in the Plenary that “it can only be resolved by peaceful means within the framework of international law and in accordance with Minsk Group principles. The stronger role of the EU in the region requires us to be cautious and correct in our assessments so that we should not be like a ball in a china shop, and instead of helping to achieve a mutually acceptable solution to the conflict [we might] actually make it more difficult.”

On the same issue, Kambeck remarks that “the EP again fully supports the OSCE Minsk Group efforts and defended this balanced position against an unprecedented lobbying campaign from Azerbaijan. I am glad that, once the MEPs looked into the issues more closely, they recognized the traps. Many MEPs felt that this was very inappropriate.”