EU to back Azerbaijan's economy diversification in 2014-2020
By Nigar Orujova
Supporting Azerbaijan's effort in diversifying its economy and promoting more balance between the regions is one of the main areas of cooperation between this partner country and the EU for the period 2014-2020.
Head of the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan Malena Mard made the remark in an interview with the EU Neighborhood Info Center.
The new European Neighborhood Instrument, which is expected to make funding faster and more flexible, will doubtlessly help tackle some of the institutional and bureaucratic bottlenecks. Funds implementation will become easier in programming and implementing. This will contribute to the deepening of EU-Azerbaijan relations, Mard believes.
Speaking about examples of successful cooperation with Azerbaijan, she mentioned the Energy Reform Support Programme (€14 million), which focused on Renewable Energies and Energy Efficiency.
"The programme was successfully carried out and allowed for the establishment of a State Agency on RES. The legislative framework was also revised and action plans on RES and EE were designed and are being implemented," Mard said.
Another success relates to twinning projects in Azerbaijan. "Azerbaijan is the country in the South Caucasus region with the highest number of twinning projects. This has meant that we have been able to achieve good results in the fields of employment and social affairs, internal market and economic criteria, as well as justice and home affairs, she added.
She also noted that an interesting project on community-based strategies to include vulnerable and isolated children in pre-school education.
"As a result of this project, an alternative model of pre-school education has been developed for presentation at national level, in order to support the Ministry of Education objective to increase coverage of pre-school services to children across the country," Mard concluded.
The EU and Azerbaijan are maintaining relations under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in 1996 and came into force in 1999. Since then the PCA has provided the legal framework for EU-Azerbaijan bilateral relations in the areas of political dialogue, trade, investment, economic, legislative and cultural cooperation.