Brussels saw two very different kinds of engagement on 16 April. Senior Azerbaijani officials were meeting with representatives of the European External Action Service (EEAS) in Brussels to advance a new partnership agreement.
In a separate chamber, the Belgian House of Representatives was adopting a resolution branding portions of Azerbaijan’s border territory as “occupied” and demanding the release of Armenian prisoners held in Baku – prisoners whose detention the International Court of Justice had repeatedly refused to contest.
The Dutch parliament passed two motions on the day in question: one demanding prisoner releases, the other on recognising the Armenian genocide.
Four days later, Baku summoned Belgian ambassador Julien de Fraipont and Dutch ambassador Marianne de Jong separately to the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The central contention is a direct one: Resolutions, despite their underlying intentions, do active damage to a peace process under extraordinary pressure from the expanding Iran war, and Europe would serve the South Caucasus far better by prioritising a substantive partnership.
What Brussels Actually Voted For
To grasp Baku’s fury, one must first read what Brussels actually voted for. The Belgian resolution, tabled by MP Michel de Maegd and MP Els Van Hoof, the chairman and vice-chairman of the Belgian foreign affairs committee, called for Azerbaijan to “retreat from the occupied border territories of Armenia, covering an area of over 200 square kilometers” in the Syunik, Vayots Dzor, and Gegharkunik regions, and for the freedom of Armenian detainees and finalisation of the peace agreement.
The Dutch parliament’s motions, tabled by MP Don Ceder, covered matching ground on prisoners and added the Armenian genocide recognition question.
Both resolutions are advisory in nature and carry purely symbolic import, a point Azerbaijani political commentator Ilgar Velizade acknowledged wearily: “In the end, all of them remained without practical implementation, but they continue to stir certain circles and stimulate new anti-Azerbaijani campaigns.”
Baku’s Anger Has a Legal Foundation
Azerbaijan’s response was grounded in a formal legal protest. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a complaint describing the papers as based on “utterly false and unfounded assessments” echoing “a thoroughly rooted anti-Azerbaijani bias.”
The Azerbaijani parliament condemned the resolutions as emanating from “the unsound and racist imagination of the traditionally anti-Azerbaijani, Islamophobic circles.”
Underneath the incendiary rhetoric, Baku holds reasonably solid ground on the prisoner question. The International Court of Justice rejected Armenia’s multiple requests to free the detained individuals, and a March 2025 opinion of the UN Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention established the legality of the pertinent detentions.
European parliamentarians who voted for the resolutions either missed, or chose to set aside, the conclusions of the actual international bodies whose authority they invoke.
A Peace Process in Genuine, Fragile Progress
The Brussels votes landed as the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process was gaining real impetus. By March 2025, the two countries had agreed on the full text of a peace agreement after bilateral negotiations.
Last August, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev initialled that agreement at the White House, alongside the framework for the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a transit corridor linking mainland Azerbaijan with the Nakhchivan exclave through Armenian territory under Armenian sovereignty, with American companies holding 99-year development rights.
Customs data from the first quarter of 2026 recorded Azerbaijan exporting around $5.75 million worth of goods to Armenia – a first pointer towards restored commercial activity.
The Azerbaijani and Armenian parliamentary speakers were conducting direct dialogue on the day the resolutions passed. Nikol Pashinyan stated explicitly to a domestic audience that dwelling on past grievances sits uneasily with a peace process both governments have already committed to: “We are closing this topic. Only in this way can we achieve peace.”
The Belgian resolution’s silence on the Washington summit and its outcomes is a striking gap – a foreign affairs committee document on the Armenia-Azerbaijan file that ignores the single most consequential diplomatic event of the past year raises real questions about the drafters’ depth of engagement with the subject.
Iran’s War Adds Another Dimension
The broader regional backdrop adds a grave severity to the diplomatic friction. Since February, the United States and Israel have been at war with Iran, a conflict whose effects have already reached the South Caucasus directly.
In March, Iranian drones struck Nakhchivan International Airport and a school in Azerbaijan’s exclave, injuring four civilians.
A brittle ceasefire brokered by Pakistan has produced little durable reprieve. US President Donald Trump says he will prolong it only as long as Tehran submits a peace proposal.
International Crisis Group South Caucasus senior specialist Joshua Kucera has warned that the Iran war is “threatening to undo” Washington’s diplomatic gains in the Caucasus, with officials in both Yerevan and Baku expressing concern that the White House’s attention has redirected entirely towards the Gulf.
At civil society talks held in Gabala in April, Azerbaijani presidential foreign affairs adviser Hikmet Hajiyev told participants that Azerbaijan remains “fully committed to the Washington agenda” and that the commitment involves “concrete and pragmatic steps” – a statement whose firmness reads as an appeal to hold the line against distractions appearing from divergent directions.
A More Constructive European Role
A useful European role remains available in the South Caucasus. The EU’s civilian monitoring mission in Armenia, the active partnership negotiations with Baku, and the region’s economic linkages with European markets all constitute real levers of engagement.
As one appraisal of 16 April observed, Brussels laid bare “the strategy of engagement and criticism at the same time, both seemingly unaware of, or at least indifferent to, each other’s existence.”
European parliaments retain a legitimate voice on international law. The question is one of proportionality and accuracy. Resolutions that misread the status of proceedings already concluded at international bodies, that omit the Washington summit’s outcomes, and that land on the day of active inter-parliamentary dialogue between the two countries, hand Baku a narrative of bad faith that makes concessions politically harder for Azerbaijani leadership.
The peace process in the South Caucasus has survived three wars, Russian disengagement, and an active Iran war on its southern flank. A non-binding vote in Brussels or The Hague will leave the peace process intact. Europe’s standing as a respected partner remains a fragile question.
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Read also:
How the Iran Ceasefire is Realigning the Gulf and Europe
Armenia Audits Its Partners in a Neighbourhood on Fire
EU Accession: Armenia Takes a Leap of Faith
