Azerbaijan's crackdown on civil society threatens gas loans

PanARMENIAN.Net - Baku has four months to rewrite its laws on NGOs or be suspended from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative — a step that could jeopardise billions of dollars of loans for a gas pipeline linking Azerbaijan to Europe, the Financial Times reports.

The move highlights how the EITI, a voluntary, Oslo-based initiative, has taken on a significant role in pushing for political reform in autocratic Azerbaijan.

The EITI, an anti-corruption watchdog that brings together governments, companies and NGOs, downgraded Azerbaijan’s membership in 2015 amid a crackdown on civil society.

On Wednesday, October 26, the board of the EITI said that Azerbaijan had made some progress but that “civil society lacks sufficient space to operate freely”. It gave Baku until its next board meeting in four months’ time to rewrite laws on funding and registration that NGOs say make it nearly impossible for them to operate independently.

Azerbaijan’s EITI status has taken on greater significance amid discussions with international lenders such as the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for billions of dollars in loans to fund its share of the Southern Gas Corridor project. The $46bn project, whose other shareholders include BP and the Turkish government, would link Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea gasfields directly to Europe for the first time.

The EITI board said that before its next meeting Azerbaijan should drop some of its most restrictive rules governing the operation of NGOs.

Highlighting Azerbaijan’s continuing intolerance of dissent, on Tuesday a 22-year-old pro-democracy activist was sentenced to 10 years on drugs charges that rights groups said were trumped-up.

NGOs had pushed for the EITI to suspend Azerbaijan’s membership immediately, but government and corporate representatives on the group’s board argued in favour of giving the country more time, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. The U.S. was particularly vocal in arguing against an immediate suspension, the people said. Washington has thrown its weight behind the Southern Gas Corridor project as a way to help Europe reduce its reliance on Russian gas.