"This is a great moment for us today to strengthen our cooperation. As a Polish parliamentarian, I will make efforts regarding strengthening the cooperation between Polish and Azerbaijani businesses".
So said Tomasz Poręba from Poland's ruling Law and Justice party on Azeri state media in Baku last July, EU Observer reports.
He called for closer ties between Poland, Europe and Azerbaijan in an interview entitled 'Poland needs gas', which Azerbaijan wants to sell to the EU in larger quantities.
Poręba was there as an MEP and as a member of the EU Parliament's transport committee (Tran), according to an official report by Azerbaijan's parliament, the Milli Majlis, and multiple Azeri-government media stories at the time.
He also visited Nagorno-Karabakh region, where senior EU diplomats fear to tread in case it inflames tensions with Armenia.
But Poręba didn't bother to declare the visit in his EU Parliament register, as the code of conduct requires.
And the Tran committee has no record of him going there on its behalf, in what amounts to deja vu on three other MEPs, who undertook similar trips last year.
When Swedish investigative news site Blankspot contacted Poręba, his Belgian law firm replied that Poręba wasn't in Azerbaijan in his capacity as an MEP, but merely as president of New Direction, his rightwing think-tank in Brussels.
