“This is a great moment for us today to strengthen our cooperation. As a Polish parliamentarian, I will make efforts regarding strengthening the cooperation between Polish and Azerbaijani businesses”.
So mentioned Tomasz Poręba from Poland’s ruling Legislation and Justice celebration on Azeri state media in Baku final July.
He known as for nearer ties between Poland, Europe and Azerbaijan in an interview entitled ‘Poland wants gasoline’, which Azerbaijan needs to promote to the EU in bigger portions.
Poręba was there as an MEP and as a member of the EU Parliament’s transport committee (Tran), in response to an official report by Azerbaijan’s parliament, the Milli Majlis, and a number of Azeri-government media tales on the time.
He additionally visited the war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh area, the place senior EU diplomats worry to tread in case it inflames tensions with Armenia.
However Poręba didn’t trouble to declare the go to in his EU Parliament register, because the code of conduct requires.
And the Tran committee has no report of him going there on its behalf, in what quantities to deja vu on three different MEPs, who undertook related journeys final 12 months.
When Swedish investigative information website Blankspot contacted Poręba, his Belgian legislation agency replied that Poręba wasn’t in Azerbaijan in his capability as an MEP, however merely as president of New Course, his rightwing think-tank in Brussels.
Poręba was accompanied by New Course’s government director Witold de Chevilly, the legislation agency mentioned.
The think-tank paid for the entire journey, the attorneys mentioned.
And if Azeri media claimed Poręba had represented anybody aside from New Course that was merely the journalists’ mistake, they added.
However even when New Course did pay for every thing, the MEP ought to nonetheless have declared this as a present value over €150 in his EU Parliament registry — which he did not.
And if Poręba’s journey was nothing to do together with his MEP standing, then Azerbaijan’s EU embassy instructed a contradictory story.
Poręba and three different MEPs that visited Azerbaijan final 12 months (Andris Ameriks, Franc Bogovič and Engin Eroglu) have been all invited by the “EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in the Parliament of Azerbaijan”, the embassy instructed EUobserver on 3 February.
Azerbaijan’s EU ambassador, Vaqif Sadıqov, helped organise their journeys as a part of his regular duties, the embassy added in a prolonged e mail, which by no means talked about New Course.
In the meantime, among the MEPs later admitted Azerbaijan had paid for his or her lodges in Baku and excursions to the mountainous and distant Nagorno-Karabakh area.
However the Azeri embassy denied this, additional muddying the waters.
“Neither Mr Poręba, nor other members of the European Parliament received ‘any free hospitality’. If you are referring to small gestures such as offering tea, coffee, or soft drinks, then, yes, they were provided,” it instructed EUobserver.
“Expenses such as flights, hotels are covered by the visiting guests themselves,” it mentioned.
There is no such thing as a suggestion any of the 4 MEPs broke any legal guidelines of their dealings with the petro-dictatorship.
However Azerbaijan has a observe report of sowing EU disinformation in addition to for so-called ‘caviar diplomacy’ — lavish hospitality for international VIPs, making it a controversial buddy.
The best way Poręba and others rode roughshod over EU Parliament transparency guidelines additionally makes Brussels look unhealthy, within the wake of the Qatargate bribery scandal.
One fellow MEP, German Inexperienced Niklas Nienaß, has resigned from a parliament cross-party group, following earlier revelations of their freewheeling Azeri excursions.
And this investigation sheds gentle on how international regimes make mates and affect folks within the EU power-bubble.
U-turn
Zooming again in on Poręba, the 49-year previous Pole did not begin out as Azerbaijan’s buddy.
Baku declared him persona non grata when he travelled to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2010 — lengthy earlier than Azerbaijan reconquered elements of the area from Karabakh-Armenian forces within the Second Nagorno-Karabakh Battle in 2020.
He went there as an EU Parliament rapporteur on Armenia.
However in 2019, Poręba signed a letter declaring full respect for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and his visa-ban was lifted.
And his journey again to Azerbaijan in July 2022 was his first one since then.
He did not give a cause for the U-turn in his sympathies, however ever since his return from Baku, Poręba has labored laborious to tie Europe and Poland nearer to Azerbaijan.
He submitted a proposal to hyperlink European transport corridors to Azerbaijan through Turkey final November.
He convened a particular assembly with Azerbaijan’s transport minister concerning the corridors in December.
And he mentioned the identical matter with a think-tank belonging to Tural Ganyaliyev, an Azerbaijani MP who accompanied him, in addition to the opposite three MEPs, on their journeys to Azerbaijan.
Poręba and his former journey companion, de Chevilly, have advocated for the opening of the Zangezur Hall — a extremely delicate route, whose standing continues to be being negotiated by Armenia and Azerbaijan and which stays closed for now.
Azeri media proceed to report that Poręba hosts his conferences as a Tran committee member, whilst Tran says it has no report of him representing them there.
Blurred strains
And every now and then, Poręba’s engagement goes approach past any EU mandate he may need.
When Azerbaijan attacked Armenia in September 2022, Poręba took to their airwaves to denounce Armenia as a detailed ally of Russia.
In December, he additionally gave a public assertion on the standard of an Azerbaijani soccer membership, Qarabag Agdam, whereas including that he had helped two Polish coaches to get an internship with the staff.
That is how Poręba, as soon as an enemy-of-the-state, turned one other buddy of Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev within the coronary heart of the EU.
And for this reason MEPs’ blurred strains between freelance friendships, official committee roles, and their gold-and-blue EU Parliament badges create trigger for concern within the post-Qatargate environment.
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