Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s allegations against the European Union, France and the Netherlands are “most regrettable,” Josep Borrell, EU foreign affairs chief said on Thursday in a social media post.
“These unacceptable statements risk to undermine the conference’s vital climate objectives and the credibility of Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency. We stand with France and the Netherlands,” Borrell said.
During the COP29 conference in Baku, Aliyev used a gathering of island leaders to lambast France and the Netherlands for their “neocolonialism,” which he linked to climate change.
“The so-called overseas territories of France and Netherlands, particularly in the Caribbean and the Pacific, are among the most severely impacted” by climate change, Aliyev told the leaders’ summit of small island developing countries at COP29. “The voices of these communities are often brutally suppressed by the regimes.”
Aliyev claimed that France had caused “environmental degradation” in the territories, which he described as “colonies,” citing the nuclear tests in French Polynesia and Algeria. He also accused French President Emmanuel Macron’s government of being responsible for the violent outbursts in New Caledonia earlier this year.
“The EU and its member states are the biggest contributor to global climate finance, supporting partners all over the world in the fight against climate change. We also reject Azerbaijani authorities’ attacks against media and NGOs facing the critical situation of human rights in the country,” EU’s foreign policy chief said.
Azerbaijan’s presidential adviser Hikmet Hajiyev sternly responded to Borrell in a post on social media.
“Your illustration of the European Union as a ‘garden’ and the rest of the world as a ‘jungle’ is the most regrettable. This statement reminds nothing other than the the colonial era narrative of ‘we and barbarians,’” Hajiyev said, claiming that Azerbaijan has provided an inclusive platform to “overseas regions of EU member states.”
“Being an EU member state doesn’t give any privilege to anyone to maintain neo/colonial rule and reject the concept of decolonization. Considering that some EU member states used to practice notorious colonial rule and shameful slave trade,” Hajiyev went on.
The presidential adviser accused the EU’s diplomatic service of instructing EU member states to not attend the COP29.
“In the same vein, some EU member states also used their diplomatic network to discourage other countries from attending COP29. By doing that you have tried to undermine the credibility of COP process. But all of these attempts have failed. 80-plus heads of state and government attended COP. 70,000-plus participants are registered. Just wanted to remind that the COP process belongs to the UN and world,” Hajiyev said.
Aliyev’s statements prompted France to boycott the COP29 all together, making it the first time since the historic Paris Agreement in 2015 that no representative of the French government will attend the UN Climate Change summit.
“After discussion and in agreement with the president of the republic and the prime minister, I will not go to Baku next week,” French Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher told the French Senate on Wednesday, denouncing the remarks as “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable,” Politico reported.
“Azerbaijan is instrumentalizing the fight against climate change for its undignified personal agenda,” Pannier-Runacher fumed.
Aliyev’s remarks further exacerbated diplomatic relations between Baku and Paris. The Azerbaijani president and other high ranking officials of his government have accused France of destabilizing the region after Paris and Yerevan signed a military cooperation agreement, which saw French arms shipments to Armenia.
