Executive Summary:<\/p>\n
On May 4, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveled to Baku for an official one-day visit and held substantive talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (President of Azerbaijan, May 4). It was the first visit to Azerbaijan by an Italian head of government in 13 years and produced a substantive package of commitments spanning energy, defense, infrastructure, and education. Meloni had flown directly from the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Yerevan, a sequence that Aliyev described as carrying \u201ca very symbolic meaning\u201d (President of Azerbaijan, May 4). Meloni reciprocated by emphasizing, \u201cItaly views the important partnership it carries out with Azerbaijan as a long-term partnership and desires it to remain long-term hereafter.\u201d<\/p>\n
The architecture of Italy\u2013Azerbaijan relations has been built incrementally over more than a decade. The two states signed their first declaration on strategic partnership in 2014 (President of Azerbaijan, July 14, 2014). In February 2020, during Aliyev\u2019s state visit to Rome, the two governments concluded the \u201cJoint Declaration on Strengthening the Multidimensional Strategic Partnership.\u201d Baku presented the joint declaration as the first such document it had ever signed with a member of the European Union and the Group of Seven (G7) (see EDM, March 3, 2020). Italian President Sergio Mattarella\u2019s official visit to Baku on September 30, 2025\u2014his second to Azerbaijan\u2014reaffirmed that framework and was crowned by the joint inauguration of the first campus of the Italy\u2013Azerbaijan University, an institution now hosting more than 500 students that Aliyev described as a long-term investment in people-to-people ties (President of Azerbaijan, May 4).<\/p>\n
Italy is Azerbaijan\u2019s largest trading partner, and the economic ballast underpinning the political relationship is substantial. Approximately 130 Italian companies operate in Azerbaijan, and Italian firms have already implemented 23 projects in the Karabakh and East Zangezur economic regions. Aliyev said, \u201cItalian companies have achieved great success\u201d in Azerbaijan, expressing his hope that their number would grow further (President of Azerbaijan, May 4). Investment flows run in both directions. The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) holds a portfolio in Italy of approximately $3 billion, including a 49 percent stake in a 402-megawatt Italian solar energy portfolio acquired in 2025\u2014an indication that bilateral economic ties are extending from hydrocarbons into the renewable sector (SOFAZ, July 18, 2025; Azernews.az, January 13; President of Azerbaijan, May 4).<\/p>\n
Less than a week after Meloni\u2019s visit, Azerbaijan\u2019s State Oil Company (SOCAR) announced the completion of the acquisition of 99.82 percent of the shares of Italiana Petroli (IP) from API Holding (Report.az, May 8). To translate this momentum into new commercial pipelines, the two leaders announced that an Italy\u2013Azerbaijan business forum will be held in Baku in the second half of 2026 (President of Azerbaijan, May 4).<\/p>\n
Energy remains the core of the bilateral agenda. Aliyev confirmed in Baku that Azerbaijan exported 25 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas in 2025, of which 9.5 bcm were delivered to Italy, covering roughly 15 percent of Italy\u2019s gas demand. Aliyev told the press, \u201cFor us, the Italian market is of primary importance for both oil and gas\u201d (President of Azerbaijan, May 4). Both leaders endorsed continued expansion of the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), the final segment of the Southern Gas Corridor that delivers Caspian gas through T\u00fcrkiye, Greece, and Albania to southern Italy. Aliyev described it as \u201cnecessary\u201d to increase exports. Meloni called Azerbaijani supplies \u201cdecisive for the energy security of Italy\u201d since the start of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She articulated a strategic vision in which Azerbaijan strengthens its role as an energy hub between Europe and Asia, with Italy serving as \u201cthe privileged gateway to the European market\u201d (President of Azerbaijan, May 4). The closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in Iran has further sharpened Rome\u2019s calculus, making Caspian molecules a key component of Italian and southern European energy supply.<\/p>\n
Defense and military-industrial cooperation received a noticeable upgrade during the visit. The relationship in this domain has been anchored since 2020 by the agreement under which Azerbaijan acquired Leonardo S.p.A.\u2019s M-346 Master trainer\/light-attack aircraft, but the talks in Baku signaled an ambition to broaden the agenda well beyond that initial purchase (Caliber.az, June 9, 2023; President of Azerbaijan, May 4). Aliyev spoke of \u201cjoint projects\u201d with Rome in the field of military-technological cooperation, noting that the two sides had discussed these opportunities in detail. Meloni pointed to Italian excellence in aerospace, maritime security, critical infrastructure protection, and advanced technologies as natural areas for joint work (President of Azerbaijan, May 4). The two leaders also agreed to convert the bilateral relationship into a \u201csort of permanent political coordination\u201d mechanism, allowing Rome and Baku to jointly plan future priorities rather than on an ad hoc basis.<\/p>\n
The regional and humanitarian dimensions of the visit reinforced the strategic logic underpinning these commitments. Meloni publicly endorsed the Armenia\u2013Azerbaijan normalization process, and the agreements reached in Washington in August 2025 and described 2026 as a potentially crucial year for unlocking the South Caucasus\u2019s potential. She also confirmed that Italy had temporarily relocated its embassy in Iran from Tehran to Baku following the outbreak of the Iran conflict in February 2026. She thanked the Azerbaijani authorities for ensuring the safe evacuation of Italian citizens from Iran (President of Azerbaijan, May 4).<\/p>\n
Meloni\u2019s visit also took place amid a deterioration in Baku\u2019s relations with the European Parliament. On May 1, the Azerbaijani Parliament adopted a resolution suspending cooperation with the European Parliament \u201cin all directions,\u201d terminating its participation in the EU\u2013Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and initiating withdrawal from the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in response to a European Parliament resolution that recognized \u201csupport for the rights of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians.\u201d The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry cited the European Parliament\u2019s resolution\u2019s \u201cunfounded and biased provisions against our country\u201d as the reason for the termination and withdrawal (European Parliament, April 28; Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Report.az, May 1; Commonspace.eu, May 11). Baku has, however, drawn a clear distinction between the European Parliament and the European Commission, with which Azerbaijan continues to deepen its strategic and energy engagement. The Italian premier\u2019s arrival in Baku just four days after the European Parliament adopted the resolution operationalized that distinction at the highest political level, illustrating that the executive-track relationship between Azerbaijan and key EU member states is advancing along its own logic.<\/p>\n
The Baku summit marks an upgrade rather than a simple reaffirmation of Italy\u2013Azerbaijan ties. By institutionalizing political coordination, expanding military-industrial cooperation, highlighting further TAP expansion, and scheduling a business forum to translate the political commitments into commercial outcomes, Meloni\u2019s visit moved the bilateral agenda from periodic high-level exchanges into a structured strategic relationship. For Rome, the visit consolidates Italy\u2019s position as Azerbaijan\u2019s principal European interlocutor at a moment when Mediterranean and Caspian energy security have become inseparable. For Baku, it confirms that its multi-vector foreign policy continues to deliver tangible upgrades with key EU member states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Executive Summary: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Azerbaijan on May 4, holding talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku that produced a roadmap for elevating their comprehensive strategic partnership across energy, defense, investment, and education. Meloni arrived in Baku directly from the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, a route that reinforces the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air-center","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1906"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1908,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1906\/revisions\/1908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/think-tanks.az\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}