Europe is a region where many fundamental human values, such as peace, democracy, the protection of human rights and freedoms, freedom of the press, fair competition, gender equality, and sustainable development, have been achieved. Achieving these results has not been easy. The journey began with the Schuman Declaration, ultimately led to the establishment of the European Union. This initiative helped end past conflicts and contradictions, paving the way for welfare societies where people can live freely. But how was this accomplished? What has been achieved, what are the future goals, and what lessons should an Azerbaijani reader learn from all of this?

Azerbaijan is one of the countries the Eastern Partnership Program consists of, and it is essential for us to regularly provide information to educate society. Civil society and the media play crucial roles in the effective functioning of institutions in European countries as well as the European Union itself. In essence, the current success of the EU has been facilitated by the civil society and the media. 

This mechanism operates simply: if something goes wrong, the question "why?" is raised. With this in mind, we met with Mr. Peter Michalko, the Ambassador of the European Union to Azerbaijan, to ask him some questions.

We present to you an exclusive interview with Mr. Peter Michalko, the Ambassador of the European Union to Azerbaijan, conducted by Kitabistan.
 

- Ambassador Michalko, first of all, thank you very much for taking your time to give an interview to Kitabıstan. I would like to start our conversation by discussing Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman. These two figures laid the foundation of the European Union, which embodies sustainable peace, cooperation and integration today. In fact, for that time, the Schuman Declaration and Adenauer's positive response was quite a bold step. Looking back now, what did the establishment of the EU bring to European nations?
 

- The European Union has been created in order to ensure that the experiences of the European continent with tragic wars of the past, it came after the Second World War, will not be repeated. It became a successful peace project that indeed brought more than 70 years of peace to the continent.
The European Union is a space of peace. It is also a space that brought cooperation to European nations, and today represents the biggest common market in the world. It is based on four freedoms of movement - of goods, of capital, of services and of people.
Its success is built on cooperation and, of course, on values that members of the European Union are sharing. These values are expressed also in the Treaty on the European Union. Beyond the single market, it is also open to cooperation with partners in the world.
And Azerbaijan is among our closest partners in this regard. We have a long tradition of cooperation and we are looking forward to continuing this cooperation also in the future. We built together a lot of results and throughout the years our cooperation and partnership has advanced. 
We are also now focused on priorities that are in front of us, that is both our partnership in many areas, that is aiming at bringing benefits to the citizens, that is economic cooperation, that is trade. The European Union, for many countries in the world, is the largest market for their exports, and this is also the case with Azerbaijan. It is also the largest exporter of processed products and it is also an important source of capital for investments, as well as knowledge in terms of know-how in technologies, but at the same time, and that is very much part of our partnership and cooperation, of the best experience that we offer also to our partners when it comes to good governance, when it comes to various sectors and the experience of our member states, how to administer policies and how to formulate policies in the best possible manner.
In this regard, we also have a very good tradition of relations with Azerbaijan. This current period of time brings us even more opportunities to cooperate. They are connected to challenges with the global agenda, that is climate change that is happening and the need for climate action that is common for all of us.
We have only one planet, there is no plan B for our Earth where we live together. So, we jointly have to take action in order to prevent negative change of our environment, of our climate. In this regard, Azerbaijan is currently in the center of attention of the entire world with the global conference COP29, the biggest global forum that exists, that is expected to take important decisions on our joint action in this crucial area that is important for the future of our generation and of the next generations.
So, the European Union is also a leading partner in developing assistance for many countries in the world. In this regard, again, we offer support to achieve sustainable development goals, but we also provide beyond financial assistance, we also provide our experience and knowledge. At the same time, the EU is providing humanitarian assistance in the world wherever it is needed and every year around 120 million people receive humanitarian support in cases of natural disasters or conflicts when they are suffering and the European Union is providing humanitarian assistance to them.
Also in case of Azerbaijan, after the first Karabakh war, the European Union was providing support to Azerbaijani citizens, IDPs and to the country in terms of food security and housing. In the first ten years, the European Union provided around 380 million dollars in support to Azerbaijan. So, we were with Azerbaijan and with people of Azerbaijan from the very beginning.
 

- Today, new conflict zones are emerging in the world and in most cases it is claimed that there is no basis for peace. Given that the European Union has been a successful peace project after two devastating world wars, what can be learned from the EU's peacebuilding experience?
 

- So, the European Union, as I said, is a peace project based on cooperation among the European nations, European countries. And it brought the experience that this principle can ensure sustainable peace that brings stability, security and prosperity to all of us.
That's why also the EU is promoting peace and its values everywhere in the world. We have been with Azerbaijan and its people from the first years of independence. After the first Karabakh war, the European Union provided a lot of support to Azerbaijani people through programs for food security, for housing.
There was a very big need and a very large number of IDPs. In general, there was a need for support in the first ten years of existence of Azerbaijan. The European Union provided around $380 million in support.
But we are continuing in this regard. And also today the European Union is active both in support of the achievement of peace, for the efforts for peace settlement, but at the same time, we are concretely supporting the demining process because we are aware of the huge risks that are connected to the very large number of landmines in Azerbaijan. In this regard, the EU is a leading partner from international partners to Azerbaijan.
This year we also doubled our support in this regard and we created what we call a Team Europe initiative that brings together European Union institutions and European Union member states. Altogether we provide support to the institutions of Azerbaijan, first of all the ANAMA agency, in order to conduct this important work on demining that is necessary for people to come back to these areas and also to start the reconstruction process. We will be ready also to participate in the projects for reconstruction.
 

- The European Parliament elections took place in June this year and several European countries have initiated measures to prevent foreign information manipulation and interference as well as disinformation campaigns during elections.  The EU is also taking necessary steps to counter these threats, for example through EUvsDisinfo project, which specifically targets Russian disinformation. What are the threats associated with foreign information manipulation and interference and disinformation campaigns and what innovative solutions is the EU considering to combat these problems?
 

- Indeed, the threats of disinformation and information manipulation are huge and increasing.
The European Union and its member states had to take measures and also to develop instruments that address these threats. As we see, these threats become more and more acute. Also this year, we saw that there was a necessity to activate the Council's integrated political crisis response arrangements in information-sharing mode to provide political decision-makers with a clear picture of developments as regards foreign interference in the European elections and contribute to preparedness and support fast and coordinated response at EU level.
 

- The European Union has established the Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025. This strategy outlines primary objectives to be accomplished over five years and also it calls member states to work together to achieve these goals. How exactly does the EU encourage effective collaboration among member states in terms of collaborating to take measures to gender equality?
 

-  Indeed, we are advancing in the agenda of gender equality in the European Union and gender equality is actually one of the values on which the European Union is based when you look into our Treaty on the European Union. It is there in the first articles mentioned among those values and principles on which the Union is based. Today, the European Commission is led by woman and we also see that there is gender balance within the European Commission but also we have the European Parliament led by woman - the President of the European Parliament - and we also within the European Commission see that already almost one-half of managerial positions are led by women.
So, this is a big advancement in terms of achieving the gender balance. This is also showing the opening towards using the full potential of any society when the gender equality and gender balance is achieved. There are of course also concrete legislative initiatives that are adopted in order to underpin these policies and this approach.
So, we had in 2022 a directive adopted in order to ensure equality of women in employment. That is something that is strengthening the opportunities for women in economic sphere, but also in any professional activity and this is how these values are implemented in real life in the European Union and its member states. Also, the approach of many policy implementation activities in various sectors have gender equality factor embedded as a part of respective policy and that again is ensuring that equality is becoming reality in every aspect and every moment of life.
 

- The European Union aims to become the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050. This objective forms the basis of the European Green Deal and is a legally binding target thanks to European climate law. How can the EU use its leadership role to encourage stronger international cooperation in the fight against climate change? 
 

- Indeed, the European Union is a leading partner in terms of climate action and we also want to lead when it comes to example in implementation of necessary policies. That's why the current European Commission set the Green Deal as its first priority and this approach is continuing.
The necessity to achieve goals of global climate action agenda remains and we actually will see this year, this November in Baku, a common effort, a global effort bringing all countries together in order to ensure that necessary objectives are achieved. In this regard, it's necessary to have cooperation of all of us. The European Union in this regard supports the Azerbaijani presidency of COP-29 in its efforts to progress in this crucial agenda to achieve objectives and we hope that with this joint effort we will be able to see advancement towards the goals that the global community has set.
 

- Established in 2009, the Eastern Partnership Program aims to expand its ties with the EU and six Eastern European countries, as well as to promote democracy, energy security, people-to-people relations and economic integration. What benefits has the Eastern Partnership Program brought to the citizens of these countries and what it can bring in the future?

- Eastern Partnership is a very advanced policy framework. It is part of European neighbourhood policy and it is designed for partners in the Eastern neighbourhood of the European Union. But we are alltogether countries partners in the Eastern Partnership that provides very advanced cooperation and access to the most advanced opportunities in our partnership.
Beyond perhaps the countries that aspire to become members of the Union and our candidates, it is the Eastern Partnership that is the most advanced form of cooperation. It opens many programs in not only areas of traditional cooperation like education or economic cooperation, but it also opens possibilities for partnership in advanced forms of research, scientific cooperation that is ensuring that institutions from countries like Azerbaijan have access to the same standards, the highest standards in the world that are also shared by European universities or institutes. Then the Eastern Partnership also allows us to open other specific areas.
There was a lot of cooperation in the area of health, especially also caused by the pandemic. Also in the area of digital economy. We have programs that are open to our neighbours as EU for Climate, EU for Climate Action, but also EU for Youth, EU for Energy and those programs are very beneficial to our partners. That's why I think that the opportunities that are coming with the Eastern Partnership are giving a lot of possibilities for benefits for citizens of Azerbaijan and other Eastern European countries.
 

- The last question is Kitabistan's traditional question but this time I would like to address it a bit differently. We would like you to recommend two books. Firstly, which book would you recommend to our readers and viewers so that they can gain a better understanding of the European Union and secondly, what is your favorite book?
 

- Well, these are two questions as a matter of fact, so I will then give you two answers to each of them.
When it comes to the question about how to understand the European Union the best, of course one could say that there are so many books of each of the cultures of the member states of the European Union to learn and to know them that I can of course suggest to read as many as possible. But to understand the EU actually, I would like to come back to the beginning of our conversation and to recommend to read to everyone actually the Schuman Declaration that was presented on the 9th of May 1950, so next year we will have 75 years since its presentation that very much describes how the European Union has started and the principles and approach on which it was built. That would come together with the Treaty on the European Union which is a big document, but what is I think the most leading and describing the European Union is the preamble and the first articles where the values and principles on which the European Union is built are encompassed there.
I also recommend this because of having knowledge of them, as I also participated in the preparation of the consolidated text of the treaty in the Slovak language when the Lisbon Treaty was adopted. And also for me as a European diplomat, it is a great honor to represent the European Union and those values and principles on which the Union is based.
And when it comes to my favorite book, again two books. One is a book by historian Paul Johnson, that is The History of the 20th Century, that I think to a very large extent is describing the also developments and conditions that led to creation of the European Union, but overall the international rules-based order that we have in place and that needs to be supported in order to ensure peace and development in the world based on international law, but also on the values on which we agree at the global level. 
And that comes together with a book that we discovered here in Azerbaijan. It is a famous book, Ali and Nino, that for me and for my wife was a reading that really opened to us Azerbaijan as a country, but also understanding of the people of Azerbaijan. And this is something that is certainly recommended to anyone who wants to learn about Azerbaijan and read about this beautiful country and its people.
 

- Thank you very much for your responses, Ambassador Michalko.
 

- Thank you very much for the interview and all the best to Kitabistan

Malak Hajiyeva

04.12.2024