Italian pivot to Azerbaijani gas after the Russian invasion of Ukraine §

## Origin Italy depended on Russian gas for around 38 percent of its consumption in 2021. Following the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and EU sanctions, Rome moved aggressively to replace Russian supply. Giorgia Meloni's government from October 2022 accelerated the policy. ## Mechanism Italian state energy company ENI signed memoranda with Azerbaijani SOCAR in April 2022 and again in 2023-24 to roughly double imports through the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum-TAP pipeline corridor, terminating in Puglia. Italian state visits became routine: Mario Draghi (June 2022), Meloni (multiple visits 2023-24), with reciprocal Aliyev visits to Rome. ## Effects By 2024 Azerbaijan supplied around 12 to 14 percent of Italian gas demand. The pipeline became the EU's principal alternative to Russian gas in southern Europe. Energy revenue from the pivot is estimated at multi-billion-euro annual flows to the Aliyev regime, partly funding the post-2020 reconstruction in retaken districts (Great Return programme) and the post-2023 consolidation. ## Reception and politics Italian government statements describe the partnership as "strategic" and frame Azerbaijan as a reliable democratic partner. Italian and EU human-rights critics, the European Parliament (in its October 2023 resolution), and Italian Armenian-community organisations describe the policy as the substitution of one sanctioned dictatorship's gas with another, unsanctioned, dictatorship's gas. The May 2026 same-day Yerevan-to-Baku visit crystallised the contradiction: an Italian PM attended a European-Political-Community summit in support of Armenia in the morning and signed energy cooperation in Baku in the afternoon. editorial