The EU Council decided on Monday 17 October to deploy a border monitoring mission on the Armenian side of the border with Azerbaijan, which could include up to 40 EU experts.
The purpose of the mission will be to monitor, analyse and report on the situation in the region, the EU Council said in a statement. It will be temporary in nature and should in principle last no longer than 2 months. According to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, the observers will be deployed in the “coming weeks”. “This is a significant signal that the EU is ready to support the stability of the South Caucasus”, he added.
Romanian Minister Bogdan Aurescu, who announced that he had proposed such a mission in June 2021 with his Austrian and Lithuanian counterparts, considered it to be a “very important step forward to increase confidence”.
To ensure rapid deployment of the EU’s observation capacity, the observation experts will be temporarily deployed from the EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM Georgia), the EU Council said in a statement. It has also taken operational measures to ensure that its observation capability in Georgia is not affected.
The deployment of such a mission was agreed between the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in the presence of the French and European Council Presidents in Prague on 6 October (see EUROPE 13038/3). The Armenian Foreign Minister had invited the EU on 22 September to deploy a civilian CSDP mission to his country. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)