The European Union is planning to allocate only €150 million to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said, calling it unfair that the EU is going to provide much larger sums to Armenia and Georgia.
The EU earlier announced plans to allocate €2.6 billion to Armenia, and €2.3 billion to Georgia.
"The amount is €150 million for Azerbaijan. But no one has specifically told us when these funds would be allocated, on what conditions. Naturally, I think this is an unfair position. Because Azerbaijan is the largest country in the South Caucasus in terms of territory, population, potential," Aliyev said, according to Interfax-Azerbaijan.
According to him, such amounts have never been announced for the countries of the South Caucasus before.
“This is an indicator that funds are being allocated after the war. If so, Azerbaijan suffered the most from the war. These funds should be allocated to Azerbaijan," Aliyev complained.
He noted that this issue was on the table during the visit of the European Council President Charles Michel to Azerbaijan.
“His answer was that Azerbaijan allegedly does not need funds. First, no one has offered us anything. You offer [the money] to us first, I will tell you whether we need it or not. Don't we need to restore the liberated territories? We need billions of dollars for this. Azerbaijan is a self-sufficient country. But if we, like Armenia, are allocated funds in the form of a grant, then we will never reject them,” Aliyev noted.
