Central Asia: What Role for the European Union?

Bishkek/Brussels  |   10 Apr 2006

The European Union is missing its opportunity to make a positive impact on Central Asia.

Central Asia: What Role for the European Union?,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines its involvement with Central Asia since the Soviet Union’s break-up and suggests how the EU could enhance its ability to influence the political, economic, and social environment of a strategic region it cannot afford to ignore. Central Asia is important for the EU’s future energy security and a major route for drugs trafficking. Conflict and instability – both real risks – would seriously hinder nation-building in Afghanistan.

“The five Central Asian states are sadly low on the EU’s priority list”, says Michael Hall, Crisis Group’s Central Asia Project Director. “But that indifference is frustrating to many in the region, who feel that their region’s recent history as part of the Soviet Union makes them politically and culturally closer to Europe in many ways than to Asia”.

EU assistance to the region has largely taken the form of technical assistance designed in 1991 to support transition to market economies and reinforce democracy and the rule of law in the post-Soviet space. That program, known as TACIS, has included a number of large trans-national projects in transport, drugs, border controls and energy which show few results for the time and money invested.

The EU has to rethink its approach. There should be a move away from failed regional projects and recognition that the five Central Asian states face very different domestic political and economic situations. Technical aid may be appropriate for Kazakhstan, but Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan need more classic development help, particularly in infrastructure and public health.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan isolate themselves, which makes outside support difficult. Efforts to “engage” these two countries – the region’s worst offenders on human rights and democratisation – are unlikely to yield results and risk undermining the EU’s commitment to its fundamental principles. The EU should make clear that regional projects will go on without the two countries if need be while its policies should focus on easing their eventual transition from dictatorship.

The EU should also develop long-term strategies designed to prevent conflict or, in the worst case, mitigate its effects. These should include planning for large humanitarian crises, including refugee flows, and finding ways to prevent instability in one state from infecting the region as a whole.

“The EU has several advantages in the region”, says Robert Templer, Crisis Group’s Asia Program Director. “It generally does not evoke the same fears as encroaching U.S., Russian or Chinese influence does, and it has experience in helping former Soviet bloc countries make successful transitions to democracy and prosperity, but it needs to use its ‘soft power’ more often and more consistently to be effective”.