The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency appear to have permanently re-defined European security. In response, politicians in Brussels and other European capitals have doubled down on the importance of unity amidst on-going uncertainty. There is an emphasis on operating in a calculated and strategic way to maximize the potential of the EU and its member states.

Essentially, EU enthusiasts see the profound changes imposed by the Trump administration as a way to resurrect enthusiasm for the European project. Even though many leaders have demonstrated maximal courtesy in their engagements with President Trump and in their public statements, it is a broadly accepted fact that the EU has no choice but to look for alternatives.

In recent weeks and months, the EU has stepped up the intensity of its engagements with the ‘East’. In this context, by ‘East’, one primarily means two groups of countries. Those associated with the EU’s long-term ‘Eastern Partnership’ programme, which includes the three South Caucasus countries, but also Central Asian ones, engagement with which carries as much geopolitical value as it does economic, given the simultaneous rise of Chinese influence in the region.

Hence, even though, in practice, the European Union has lacked consistency in implementing its pledges, the underlying mission that is uniting Brussels with its most influential member states appears to be the desire to upgrade vital existing partnerships that will help off-set the impacts of a weakened transatlantic alliance. This is already observable in practice, with the EU rapidly re-visiting several of its relationships in response to a geopolitical alteration as major as the foreign policy re-direction pursued by the Trump Administration.

However, before the EU re-engages such countries and upgrades or re-defines its cooperation frameworks, it must address some of its previous failures which caused significant damage to its reputation. This, first and foremost, applies to Azerbaijan, a country towards which EU institutions have for too long demonstrated insincerity and double standards, approaches that are in theory contradictory to the EU’s founding principles.

After Azerbaijan liberated its territories in 2020, the EU could not effectively seize the unique momentum for peace failing to positively impact the emerging security architecture of the South Caucasus. It failed to foster momentum for normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan after the ending of........

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