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The EU Strategy for Central Asia: year one
14/10/2008 By Jos Boonstra, Neil Melvin
In 2007, the Council of the European Union adopted “The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership”. This Strategy signalled the EU’s ambition to initiate a fundamental shift in its relations with Central Asia by linking general political goals to a concrete working prospectus in the region for the first time. The Strategy sets a high bar for achievement, identifying a broad range of priorities for the future relationship between the EU and states in Central Asia.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana and Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov. (D.Faget/AFP/Getty Images)
One year on from the adoption of the Strategy, the EU has made important progress in strengthening political contacts with Central Asia, but the Strategy has yet to deliver on its promise to foster a broad range of engagements. Moreover, considerable questions remain about the political direction of the EU’s approach to Central Asia.
With the war in Georgia in the summer of 2008 promoting a rethink of the Union’s approach to Russia, Ukraine and the South Caucasus, there is also a strong case for revisiting the EU Strategy for Central Asia and considering ways of making Europe’s contacts more effective with the key countries of the region.
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Keywords
Democracy Energy Human rights Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Security Tajikistan Turkmenistan UzbekistanBio author: Jos Boonstra
Central Asia. Eastern Europe. The Balkans. Caucasus. CSDP.NATO.OSCE.Security Sector Reform. Eastern Partnership.
Bio author: Neil Melvin
Neil Melvin specializes in the study of conflict, with a particular focus on ethno-national conflicts in the former Soviet Union and in Asia
