Azerbaijan, EU to mull institutional, trade chapters of new partnership agreement

Azerbaijan and the European Union will hold several video conferences on the new partnership agreement in early September, the EU Delegation to Azerbaijan told Trend.

"The work on the new agreement continues by the means of teleconferencing. There are several video conferences scheduled and planned for the beginning of September on the Institutional and Trade chapters of the Agreement. Number of the remaining questions will be discussed,” said the EU Delegation.

Decision on the next round of negotiations will be taken after these video conferences, according to the EU Delegation.

The European Council adopted a mandate for the European Commission and the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy to negotiate, on behalf of the EU and its member states, a comprehensive agreement with Azerbaijan in November 2016.

The new agreement should replace the 1996 partnership and cooperation agreement and should better take account of the shared objectives and challenges the EU and Azerbaijan face today.

The agreement will follow the principles endorsed in the 2015 review of the European Neighborhood Policy and offer a renewed basis for political dialogue and mutually beneficial cooperation between the EU and Azerbaijan.

Currently, bilateral relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are regulated on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation that was signed in 1996 and entered into force in 1999.