Europe wants the Middle Corridor, but cannot bypass Azerbaijan

There is an old comic scene humanity has laughed at for centuries: the bride is at the altar, the guests are waiting, the ceremony is ready — but the groom never arrives. Something similar happened in Brussels on June 23, when the European side launched its Connectivity Platform dedicated to the Middle Corridor. Almost everyone seemed to be present, except the country without which the entire project loses its practical meaning: Azerbaijan. Yet, rather surprisingly, the Azerbaijani flag was displayed at the event, as if symbolism alone could create the impression that Baku was fully on board.

To understand why Azerbaijan’s transport delegation did not appear particularly eager to attend, one must look not at the past few days, but at the past many years. The Middle Corridor, which Brussels is now trying to present as part of its own strategic agenda, did not emerge from European grants, policy papers or comfortable conference rooms. It was Azerbaijan that spent years building the infrastructure, taking the risks and investing its own resources while Europe continued to rely on the northern route through Russia and the southern route through Suez, treating the Caspian direction as a distant periphery rather than a future strategic artery.

While European institutions were still looking elsewhere, Baku was investing. Azerbaijan built the modern shipbuilding capacity that no other country in the Caspian region possessed at the same level, modernized ports, developed ferry connections and worked with Kazakhstan, Georgia and Türkiye to reduce bureaucratic friction, harmonize customs procedures and turn scattered transport links into a functioning corridor. This was not done with money from the EU budget. It was done through Azerbaijani strategy, Azerbaijani resources and Azerbaijani political will.

The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is perhaps the clearest example. Azerbaijan did not simply build this project without European support; it built it despite European resistance. Brussels, guided by its familiar and often irrational Armenia-centric view of the South Caucasus, was unhappy that the railway bypassed Armenia. International financial institutions were discouraged from financing it, and they did not finance it. Azerbaijan went ahead anyway, including by supporting the Georgian section of the line. Later, responding to changes in global trade and regional logistics, Baku expanded the railway’s capacity. On June 2, 2026, the modernized section was officially launched, increasing capacity from one million tons to five million. Europe did not contribute a eurocent to this work. Yet today European officials stand in front of the same maps and speak of the corridor as though it had always been their strategic creation.

Brussels’ sudden turn toward the South Caucasus is less the result of geopolitical wisdom than of necessity. The northern route through Russia was disrupted by the war. The southern route through the Red Sea became vulnerable to attacks and uncertainty. European Commissioner Marta Kos has been quite open about this, showing maps of blocked and congested routes and acknowledging that traditional transport channels are no longer reliable. Only after reaching this dead end did European capitals remember that another route existed — one that Azerbaijan had been building for years without meaningful European political or financial support. There is nothing shameful in recognizing necessity. What is shameful is to recognize it and then try to appropriate the work of the partner who made the alternative possible.

The fourfold increase in cargo traffic along the Middle Corridor, now proudly cited in Brussels, did not happen because of European presentations. It was made possible by Azerbaijani ports, Azerbaijani railways, Azerbaijani ships and Azerbaijani money. Yet the political packaging increasingly suggests that Europe wants to present the corridor as an extension of its own initiative, while treating Azerbaijan as an expected participant rather than as an indispensable architect of the route.

This is the real reason Azerbaijan’s absence from the Brussels event matters. Baku is not opposed to Europe as a partner. On the contrary, Azerbaijan has repeatedly shown that it is ready for serious, mutually beneficial cooperation with the European Union. But being invited into a platform without a clear understanding of what is being offered, under what conditions and with what recognition of Azerbaijan’s role, is not a serious approach. Azerbaijan is not a decorative element in someone else’s geopolitical presentation.

The problem becomes even more obvious when one moves from maps to numbers. Brussels speaks of two billion euros under the Global Gateway framework and promises to reduce transit times from 45 days to 15. But what exactly is being offered to Azerbaijan, the country without which the corridor cannot function, remains unclear. The contrast with Armenia is striking. When Armenian exports ran into Russian restrictions in June 2026, Ursula von der Leyen quickly announced 50 million euros for Yerevan, with the first 34 million already transferred. Armenian agricultural products then began moving to Europe, and Commissioner Kos was quick to celebrate the “first symbolic batch” of Armenian apricots arriving in the European Union, promising further work to strengthen Armenia’s links with its neighbours and Europe.

This would have been less remarkable if it were not accompanied by Brussels’ increasingly strange attempt to describe Armenia as a central connectivity actor. Von der Leyen recently called Armenia a “strategic hub connecting Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia” and welcomed as a “wonderful step forward” the opening of the railway through Georgia and Türkiye — the very railway initiated and built by Azerbaijan, and the very project Brussels had once tried to obstruct because it bypassed Armenia. In other words, Europe praises Armenia for rails it did not build, while trying to insert itself into a corridor it once failed to support.

President Ilham Aliyev had already pointed to this contradiction at the international forum “Towards a New World Order” held at ADA University in April 2025. He said he was surprised by Ursula von der Leyen’s remarks at the Central Asia-European Commission summit in Uzbekistan, where she spoke about opening borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and between Armenia and Türkiye, as a way to facilitate the Middle Corridor, or what Europe calls Global Gateway. As Aliyev noted, the corridor already exists, and Armenia plays no role in it. “We can understand the feelings of European bureaucrats toward Armenia, but you cannot ignore the map,” the president said.

That sentence captures the essence of the problem. The Middle Corridor is not a matter of political wishes or bureaucratic imagination. It is a matter of geography, infrastructure, investment and operational capacity. Azerbaijan is the irreplaceable link in this system, regardless of how the route is presented in European halls. If Brussels had approached the issue in the right order, it would have first opened a serious and detailed dialogue with Baku, made concrete proposals and recognized Azerbaijan’s central role. Only after that would it make sense to discuss platforms, formats and joint projects.

Instead, Europe appears to have chosen a different method: create the stage, raise the flags, speak in the name of connectivity and assume that Azerbaijan will eventually join because the symbolism has already been arranged. But this approach has never worked with Baku, and it does not work today. Azerbaijan knows the value of its participation. It will not allow its role to be reduced to a flag on the wall, a name in a presentation or a supporting actor in someone else’s geopolitical theatre.

The Brussels event therefore revealed more than a protocol problem. It exposed a deeper misunderstanding of the South Caucasus. Europe wants the Middle Corridor, but it cannot build it around Azerbaijan, behind Azerbaijan or instead of Azerbaijan. The route exists because Baku invested in it when others doubted it, ignored it or tried to block it. If the European Union now wants to be part of this reality, it must begin with respect for that fact.

On such a wedding, the groom does not appear simply because the guests have gathered and the hall has been decorated. He comes only when he is treated not as scenery, but as the central participant.