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European Commission presents its annual Progres report on Azerbaijan

17 May 2012 11:26 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan, Ambassador Roland Kobia held press conference dedicated to the 62nd anniversary of Schuman Declaration, which founded the European Union, and to the release of progress report on Azerbaijan, which was published within the framework of European Day and European Neighborhood Policy. The ambassador said that the EU countries united around the main principles as human rights, democracy and fundamental freedoms: â€œEuropean Union continues developing throughout its history and is interested in extending relations with partner countries.â€

The ambassador presented the report on Azerbaijan published by the European Commission on May 15, within in the framework of European Neighborhood Policy. The report reflected the work done by Azerbaijan within the Action Plan between Azerbaijan and the EU and recommendations for the fulfillment of all commitments.

The ambassador said that as a positive change, the report noted achievements of Azerbaijan in the sphere of economy, poverty reduction, adoption of new customs code, monetary and financial stability, increasing trade turnover with the EU, energy cooperation and cooperation in the prevention of crime, money laundering and terrorism.

The ambassador welcomed Azerbaijanâ€™s achievements in the fight against corruption and noted that it needs to do much work in this sphere.

EU recommends making more efforts in the fields of human rights, political reforms in the field of democratization, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, adoption of the law of defamation, the improvement of legislation on NGOs, development of the private sector, business transparency and progress toward the accession to the World Trade Organization.

Rolan Kobia answered the question about the state of human rights in Azerbaijan and said that it is impossible to achieve progress in this sphere within a day: â€œI donâ€™t agree with those who say that the EU strongly criticized only Azerbaijan. There are positive aspects too. For example, recently several rallies were allowed to hold in Baku. Of course, misunderstandings still remain between the sides, especially concerning the venues of the rallies, but it can be still estimated as a positive aspect. It encourages us.â€