Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s third president (1923–2003), remains the foundational architect of the country’s modern achievements and its deepening partnership with Europe.
The pipelines, institutions and diplomatic doctrines he set in motion more than three decades ago have made Azerbaijan an indispensable energy and transit partner for the EU — a legacy now embodied in the steady stream of European leaders arriving in Baku, News.Az reports, citing The Liberum.
By Vasif Huseynov
Within just a few weeks, Baku has hosted European Council President António Costa (March 2026), Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (April 26–28), Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (May 4) and EU High Representative Kaja Kallas (May 5). Each described Azerbaijan as a “strategic” or “key partner”; each came to discuss energy security, the Middle Corridor, the Azerbaijan–Armenia peace process and a “more structured partnership” with the EU.
Such a concentration of high-level European visits to a country of around ten million people would be unimaginable without a long preparatory effort — one that began more than three decades ago under Azerbaijan’s third president, Heydar Aliyev.
As Azerbaijan this year marks the 103rd anniversary of his birth, it is a fitting moment to recall how decisively his leadership shaped the country that European capitals are now courting. The image of presidents and prime ministers landing in Baku to discuss gas, transport corridors, and a peace deal in the South Caucasus is the visible result of strategic choices Aliyev made in the 1990s, when Azerbaijan’s very survival as an independent state was in question.
When Aliyev returned to the presidency in 1993, the newly independent country was on the brink of collapse. Around 20 per cent of its territory was under Armenian occupation, up to 700,000 Azerbaijanis had been displaced, and two preceding administrations had failed to contain the chaos of the post-Soviet transition.
Drawing on decades of political experience as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan (1969–1982) and as a senior leader of the USSR, Aliyev stabilised the state, prevented a civil war, and laid the groundwork for long-term development.
Comparative analysis with other post-Soviet states shows how unusual this was: many newly independent countries lost their bearings, while Azerbaijan navigated the turbulent 1990s with rare prudence.
At the heart of his statecraft was what he himself called a “balanced foreign policy” — building friendly relations with all major powers without siding with one against the others. This was a sharp departure from his predecessors’ swings between pro-Russian and anti-Russian postures, and it became the doctrine that has guided Azerbaijan ever since.
It is the same doctrine that today allows Baku to receive the Vice President of the United States or an EU High Representative one day and a Russian or Iranian envoy the next, to liberate its occupied territories in 2020 without falling into a wider war, and to be perceived in Brussels as predictable and pragmatic rather than ideologically captured.
Aliyev’s most consequential decision for Azerbaijan’s future relations with Europe was in the energy sphere. The signing of the “Contract of the Century” in 1994 with a consortium of Western oil companies was, above all, a strategic statement: Azerbaijan was anchoring its development to Western markets and Western technology.
The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan oil pipeline, conceived under his leadership and inaugurated in 2005, became the first major artery to bring Caspian hydrocarbons to global markets, bypassing Russian territory. His vision then matured into the Southern Gas Corridor — the multi-billion-dollar system comprising the Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic (TAP) pipelines — which today carries Azerbaijani gas directly into the European Union. None of the conversations with Costa, Meloni, Babiš or Kallas in 2026 would be possible without this infrastructure.
The numbers underline how strategic this legacy has become. In 2025, of the around 25 billion cubic meters of gas exported by Azerbaijan, roughly 13 billion went to EU member states — nearly 60 per cent more than in 2021. TAP supplies about 15–16 per cent of Italy’s gas demand, making Italy the top EU importer of Azerbaijani energy and giving Meloni’s visit its strategic weight.
The Czech Republic, through Babiš, announced plans to purchase up to 2 bcm of Azerbaijani gas annually, with bilateral trade already exceeding $800 million. The 2022 EU–Azerbaijan Memorandum on Strategic Partnership in Energy envisaged doubling exports to the EU — a target now central to Brussels’ plan to phase out Russian LNG by the end of 2026 and pipeline gas by September 2027.
The pipelines Heydar Aliyev set in motion are, in effect, instruments of European energy security. His footprint extends well beyond hydrocarbons. It was under his presidency that Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe in January 2001 and that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the EU — still the legal foundation of bilateral ties — entered into force in 1999. He also articulated, long before it became fashionable in Brussels, the idea of Azerbaijan as a bridge between East and West.
Today, the Middle Corridor, the Trans-Caspian transport route connecting Europe with Central Asia and beyond, is at the heart of EU–Azerbaijan economic dialogue, with Brussels pledging Global Gateway investments in transport, railway modernisation in Nakhchivan and the implementation of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
Equally, Heydar Aliyev’s patient, long-term approach to the territorial conflict with Armenia prepared the ground for the diplomatic breakthroughs of recent years. The combination of military modernisation, economic strength and diplomacy that he initiated culminated in the 2020 liberation of the occupied territories under his successor, Ilham Aliyev.
In March 2025, Baku and Yerevan agreed on the text of a peace treaty; on August 8, 2025, in Washington, the two leaders initialled the Agreement on Peace and Inter-State Relations and signed a Joint Declaration recognising each other’s territorial integrity and reaching an agreement on a key transportation passage (Zangezur corridor or the Trump Route For International Peace and Prosperity). European visitors to Baku in 2026 have all welcomed this “historic momentum” — a momentum unthinkable without the strategic patience Heydar Aliyev once embedded in Azerbaijan’s policy.
Today’s flagship achievements — the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (2019–2024), the hosting of COP29 in November 2024, the upcoming European Political Community summit in Baku in 2028, and the negotiation of a new comprehensive agreement with the EU — are all visible parts of a single long curve.
That curve begins in 1993, with a leader who understood both the constraints and the opportunities of his country’s geography. Heydar Aliyev did not live to see the President of the European Council describe Azerbaijan as “a key partner” whose role is “more important than ever.” Yet, each such statement is, in effect, the maturation of decisions he took: the “Contract of the Century,” the BTC pipeline, accession to the Council of Europe, and the doctrine of balance in foreign policy.
Azerbaijan’s modern achievements and its advanced relations with Europe today rest on a foundation laid more than three decades ago. In the steady stream of European leaders now arriving in Baku, one can clearly read the same handwriting that once signed the documents of the 1990s — the silent co-author of Azerbaijan’s European story.