Azerbaijani president meets CEOs in Berlin with an eye on German cutting-edge technology, investment

As a relatively new actor in the European energy market, Azerbaijan has times and times again proven to be a trustworthy partner, determined to build on successes to diversify its own economy by applying cutting-edge western technology.

With that being said as well as the realities emerging amid the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, Europe, under the current circumstances, is remodeling foreign economic players' roles in its own economy and Azerbaijan's natural resources are playing a decisive role in stabilizing resource-hungry continent's thirst for energy resources.

In the same vein, Azerbaijani-German relations are particularly focused on economic cooperation, as Baku remains Berlin’s most important economic and trade partner in the South Caucasus. The trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $1.3bn in 2022 rising from what was $1.2bn a year ago. Azerbaijan's share in Germany's trade turnover with the countries of the South Caucasus was about 65 percent in 2020.

Currently, standing as a testimony to the high-level bilateral partnership, President Ilham Aliyev is on a working visit to Germany, which is his second visit to the country over the last two months, with the president attending Munich Security Conference back on February 17.

Addressing heads of Germany’s leading companies in Berlin, Aliyev said that over 10 European countries have requested for Azerbaijani gas supply or for an increase of existing gas supply. He also noted that due to the growing demand in Europe for natural gas from new sources, Azerbaijan is now planning to expand its pipeline capacity.

“In particular, TANAP, which has a capacity of 16 bcm. We will expand up to 32 and TAP, which has a capacity of 10 bcm, will be expanded, we plan up to 20. And that is mainly, because of the growing demand from Europe. Because, you can imagine the pipeline of the length of 3,500 kilometers integrated, free pipeline system commissioned on 1 January 2021, now needs expansion,” the president stressed.

Besides the cooperation between the two countries in the frameworks of the European Union, as well as other international organizations, Azerbaijan and Germany also treasure their bilateral ties.

Azerbaijan was the ninth-largest supplier of oil to Germany in 2020, where about 2.5m tons of crude oil were exported from Azerbaijan. The key exports are machinery, motor vehicles, and components, iron and steel products, and production facilities.

Talking politically, Germany manages to carry out a balancing policy towards South Caucasus. Although a member of what is now the defunct OSCE Minsk Group and standing for a lasting solution to the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict, Germany is not so vocal about the matter. However, the German parliament has stated that maintaining the previous status quo, namely, Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized lands was inadmissible.

It is noteworthy that prior to Ilham Aliyev’s official visit to Germany, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also paid a visit to the country at the start of March. During his visit, the premier took part in a discussion on the topic “Security and Stability in the South Caucasus: Prospects for Armenia” and talked about the EU monitoring mission in Armenia.

Additionally, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Germany supports the mediation efforts of European Council President Charles Michel to bring stability to the region, including by involving its staff in the observer mission.