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THE EUROPEAN UNION IS READJUSTING ITS CENTRAL ASIAN STRATEGY
Murat LAUMULIN
D.Sc. (Political Science), Chief Research Associate, Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Research (Almaty, Kazakhstan)
Introduction
A
s soon as the Soviet Union fell apart, Central Asia, together with the rest of the postSoviet expanse, became part of so-called
political Europe, that is, it was drawn into the EU’s sphere of interests on the strength of the OSCE membership of all the post-Soviet states.
The European Union’s strategy and policy in Central Asia are not directly related to the region’s military-strategic security, although they can indirectly affect it through
(1) European institutions such as the OSCE, the European Commission, the European Parliament, etc.;
(2) the policy of the European powers (the U.K., Germany, and France in particular); and
(3) NATO, the military-political institution that unites most of the EU countries.
The EU is guided in its Central Asian policy by two very important considerations.
■ First, as distinct from the U.S., China, and even Russia (which have no conceptual documents related to the region), the European Union is the only geopolitical actor that has a strategy outlined in detail in a document entitled The EU’s Central Asia Strategy adopted in 2007, even though it has not yet shown its efficiency or produced any impressive results.
■ Second, the European Union demonstrates its preference for “soft power” at the conceptual and practical levels as
opposed to the use of force as a traditional geopolitical instrument. This is true of Brussels’ foreign policy in Central Asia and elsewhere.
The European political community is convinced that sustainable democratic and secular regimes in Central Asia and the Southern Caucasus will create a security belt of sorts to protect Europe from the unstable regions of the Muslim world. On the whole, however, European political analysts have not yet decided whether the EU needs Central Asia and to what extent.
The EU members, however, never hesitate to support their companies functioning in Central Asia (particularly in the energy sector) to ensure a steady flow of oil and gas from this fuel-rich region.1
1 See: I.V. Bolgova, Politika ES v Zakavkazye i Tsen-tralnoy Azii. Istoki i stanovlenie, Navona, Moscow, 2008, 184 pp; M.T. Laumulin, “Strategiia Evropeyskogo soiuza v Tsentralnoy Azii: osnovnye etapy i tseli,” Kazakhstan v glo-balnykh protsessakh (IMEP, Almaty), No. 2, 2009, pp. 7285; D. Malysheva, “Tsentralnaia Azia i Evropeyskiy soyuz,” Rossia i novye gosudarstva Evrazii (IMEMO), No. 11, 2010, pp. 24-34; L.A. Salvagni, “Quel role pour l’Union européenne en Asie centrale?” Le Courrier des Pays de l’Est, No. 1057, 2006, pp. 17-29; S. Peyrouse, “Business and Trade Relationships between the EU and Central Asia,” EUCAM Working Paper, No. 1, June 2009, 16 pp.
EU Strategy in Central Asia: A Security Factor
In the first half of 2007, when Germany assumed rotating chairmanship in the Council of Europe, Berlin was convinced that the EU’s strategy in Central Asia should be revised.2 In June 2007, the Council of Europe adopted a new EU Central Asian Strategy (drafted mainly by the Germans) which revealed with unprecedented clarity the pluses and minuses of European Central Asian policy.
The EU and Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership was drafted on 31 May, 2007 for 20072013 and specified the aims the European Union was prepared to pursue in the region:
(1) stability and prosperity for all countries;
(2) poverty reduction and higher living standards in the Millennium Development Goals context;
2 See: A.B. Tuyakbaeva, German Politics in Central Asia, KazNU, Almaty, 2009 (in Kazakh).
(3) regional cooperation among the Central Asian states and with the EU for the sake of interstate energy, transport, environment, and education initiatives.3
The European Union specified its strategic aims and practical tasks as follows:
(1) The threat of Islamic radicalism should be given serious attention while the region’s countries (Uzbekistan in particular) should receive assistance for strengthening their law-enforcement structures and radically reforming their security system.
(2) Afghanistan and its role in the Central Asian economies and security should be carefully studied, while transcontinental trade should develop in all vectors (not only in the Russian and European vectors).
(3) Turkey should become a critically important connecting link to help Europe affect the processes underway in Central Asia, which means that cooperation with Ankara should be upgraded.
(4) Cooperation with the reformers in the Central Asian governments and parliaments should be strengthened.
European experts have come to the conclusion that the EU’s Central Asian strategy might fall through; there is a more or less commonly shared opinion in Brussels that it is too early to assess its results: progress and mutual trust call for patience and time.4
In fact, the EU has reached none of the strategic aims it formulated back in the 1990s: it did not reduce poverty or overcome the opposition to the reforms, nor did it accomplish anything in the sphere of human rights and democracy. Its energy interests remain as vulnerable as ever.
No progress has been detected in the security sphere. European analysts are convinced that the time has come for the European Union to abandon its image of a “toothless paper tiger” and come forward as a serious force to be reckoned with. Europe should demonstrate more confidence in the energy sphere and more realism with respect to democracy.5 It is more or less commonly believed that the EU should coordinate its strategy with the other international actors, such as NATO and the OSCE.6
This is happening because there is no coordinated conceptual approach to the EU’s Central Asian strategy, at least at the level of the largest powers. With its own interests in mind (which Berlin presents as common European), Germany has tried more than once to formulate the EU’s strategic aims and arrive at what looks like a coordinated policy.
In 2010, the leading EU experts in Central Asia supplied two types of recommendations: general strategic and more specific technical.7
The strategic aspects of EU-Central Asia cooperation included the following:
3 [http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/EU_CtrlAsia_EN-RU.pdf]; on the prehistory of the question see: B. Eshment, “Regionalnaia integratsia v Tsentralnoy Azii: vzgliad iz Evropy,” in: Materially 6-y Almatinskoy mezhd-unarodnoy konferentsii po bezopasnosti, KISI, Almaty, 2008, pp. 19-24.
4 See: Strategiia Evropeyskogo soiuza dlia Tsentralnoy Azii. Tri goda spustia, FFE, Almaty, 2010, 243 pp. (see also this publication in German: EU-Strategie für Zentralasien. Drei Jahre danach, FES, Almaty, 2010. 243 S.).
5 See: Sh. Akiner, “Partnership Not Mentorship: Re-appraising the Relationship between the EU and the Central Asian States,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly (ISDP, Stockholm), Vol. 8, No. 4, 2010, pp. 17-40; N. de Pedro, “The EU in Central Asia: Incentives and Constraints for Greater Engagement,” in: Great Powers and Regional Integration in Central Asia: A Local Perspective, ed. by M. Esteban, N. de Pedro, Exlibris Ediciones, Madrid, 2009, pp. 113-135.
6 See: K. Isaev, “Current Issues of Interaction between the EU and Central Asian Countries in the Context of Kazakhstan’s Chairing of the OSCE,” Central Asia’s Affairs (KazISS, Almaty), No. 2, 2009, pp. 3-4.
7 See:M. Emerson, J. Boonstra, N. Hasanova, M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, Into Eurasia: Monitoring the EU’s Central Asia Strategy. Report of the EUCAM Project, CEPS, Brussels; FRIDE, Madrid, 2010, III+143 pp.
(1) A possible re-vamping of the strategy would be more appropriate in 2011 when the new External Action Service is in place.
(2) The EU has some clear security concerns with respect to Central Asia: energy supply security through diversification of sources and linkages with Afghanistan. Contrary to the opinion of some experts, this does not look like a conflict of interests vs. values as long as legitimate interests are pursued in a principled manner. However, Central Asia presents a real challenge in this regard, since the present state of governance in the region is far removed from these principles. This presents the EU with a choice: either to pass over its preferred principles in this case or to make a special effort to apply its principled approach in ways that are realistically operational in this difficult political environment.
(3) The case of Kazakhstan deserves special mention as a key country in the region that has chosen to respond to the EU’s strategy by adopting its own “Path to Europe.” Coupled with Kazakhstan’s new chairmanship of the OSCE in 2010, this European orientation as part of a multivectoral foreign policy presents an important opportunity for political and economic convergence with Europe, including deepening relations with the Council of Europe. These strategic directions have been announced, and the EU has also responded by agreeing to work toward a new treaty-level agreement with Kazakhstan. If this succeeds, it could have a positive effect throughout Central Asia, which would be an achievement of strategic importance. In particular, it would promote a breakthrough in the EU’s relations with Uzbekistan.
(4) The EU’s concept of regional cooperation in Central Asia needs revision. However, it should not be overemphasized with respect to the opportunities for regional cooperation with neighbors external to the region (Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and South Asia) or in those areas where the EU has several major interests (e.g. in energy, transport, and security). The EU is working on this wider regionalism with projects to link Central Asia to its Eastern Partnership initiative. Such elements of wider regional cooperation could help disenclave the landlocked Central Asia, and for the EU contribute to a wider “EurAsia strategy” overarching and going beyond the several regional dimensions of the EU’s present neighborhood policy. This wider Eurasian dimension, involving all the major powers of the Eurasian land-mass, would fit in with the increasingly evident need to channel the new global multipolar dynamics into an ordered world system. These considerations go well beyond concern for Central Asia alone, but the region is inevitably going to be at the crossroads of many issues of political and economic significance.
The technical aspects are as follows:
(1) The EU intends to increase its diplomatic presence in the region, and with the impetus of the new Lisbon Treaty provisions this needs to be done decisively, with adequately staffed EU delegations in all five states.
(2) A structured process has been set up in the human rights field at both the official and the civil society levels. But this needs to be carefully upgraded, without which it risks becoming little more than a token routine of political convenience for both sides. The interaction between the official dialog and civil society seminars could be strengthened, with the civil society seminars invited to undertake regular year-to-year monitoring of progress in the human rights field.
(3) The full development of the rule of law initiative is important, especially given the absence of an explicit democratization agenda with respect to Central Asia.
(4) The sanctions on Uzbekistan after the Andijan events in 2005 did not yield substantial change and have now been lifted for the sake of engaging with the regime. If the EU should resort to such measures in Central Asia (or elsewhere) in the future, it needs to be disciplined and unified. And when the decision is made it should be loyally backed by all, otherwise the operation and the EU itself will be discredited.
(5) However, the Commission should now evaluate the first results of the Erasmus Mundus program in the region, which does not seem to be adequately adapted to Central Asian realities, and undertake a broader education strategy review for Central Asia. Consideration should be given to other projects with a view to a clearer branding of the EU as promoter of a cluster of high-quality and independent education and research institutions, as well as a supporter of reform of the basic education systems.
(6) In the area of water management and hydroelectric power, there is a robust case for major investment in upstream states that could also bring huge benefits for downstream states, and avert the real risks of interstate conflict over water. The European Union, which has failed to clearly outline its position in relation to water conflicts and the methods of their settlement, should be more explicit about the desirability of big investments in the projects from which the local countries will profit to the greatest extent.8
(7) The EU could help to establish a technical-economic case for investment in increased hydroelectric capacity that could offer benefits to both upstream and downstream states, outline the mechanisms for regional cooperation that would assure equitable implementation, and raise these issues at the top political level in alliance with major multilateral organizations.
The EU should make available a special trust fund of grant resources for this purpose to enable the World Bank to draw up scenarios and cost-benefit calculations in collaboration with the U.N. Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia and the Asian Development Bank. In any case there is also a large agenda for ‘no regrets’ investments in improved water management, modest-sized hydroelectric facilities, and solar and wind renewable energies.
(8) In the field of energy policy, the EU is conducting wide-ranging energy dialogs with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The EU has a nonbinding memorandum of understanding with Turkmenistan that envisages the purchase of gas, and this would fit into its Southern Corridor concept of diversifying gas supplies with a trans-Caspian link. While the EU has been debating various pipeline options for years, China has acted with great speed in constructing oil and gas pipelines across Central Asia. This is a classic example of how the EU and its member states have to negotiate and decide faster on elements of a common energy policy, or see the world leave it behind.9
(9) In the field of transport, the EU’s present corridors and axes that extend east through or around Central Asia have become in part obsolete and need to connect with the new trans-continental Eurasian realities, East-West and North-South. The EU, and in particular the Commission’s transport department and the European Investment Bank, should communicate to the CAREC program of the Asian Development Bank their willingness to enter into discussions
8 See: M. Kramer, Integrirovannoe i orientirovannoe na ustoychivost upravlenie vodnymi resursami. Potentsial sotrudnichestva mezhdu Germaniey i Tsentralnoy Aziey, Idan, Almaty, 2010, 332 pp.
9 See: L. Azarch, “Central Asia and the European Union: Prospects of an Energy Partnership,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly (ISDP, Stockholm), Vol. 7, No. 4, 2009, pp. 55-72.
to optimize the coherence of EU and CAREC transport corridors that do or could link Central and Eastern Asia with Europe. In addition there is a new U.S. initiative (Northern Distribution Network) to develop supply routes from Baltic and Caspian Sea ports to Afghanistan via Central Asia. Since China, Russia, and the U.S. all have major stakes in these transport corridors, the case for explicit coordination is evident.
So far, the EU remains indifferent to the steadily growing flow of Chinese commodities and the increasing Chinese investments in Central Asian infrastructure, which obviously calls for revised transportation policies in the region. Rationalized, the routes can be united into a Central Trans-Eurasian Corridor which will cross Russia and Ukraine in the south and meet the North-South corridor in the strategically important point in Western Kazakhstan. The European Commission and the European Investment Bank should start consultations with the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Program and the corresponding international institutions. Cooperation with the U.S.-developed Northern Distribution Network also looks promising.
(10) Security and stability in Central Asia can be described as one of the main concerns of the European Union, yet most of the projects are unrelated to them. The main contribution to combating common security threats has been regional programs for border management (BOMCA) and hard drugs (CADAP). They are fairly effective and mostly approved; until recently they were managed by UNDP offices. CADAP is being transferred to the European Aid Agency, which is expected to improve the EU’s image as a partner. The BOMCA model might be applied to other parts of the security sectors in Central Asia to enhance effectiveness and good governance of police and security forces, at least in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan; cooperation with similar programs in Afghanistan should be extended.
Cooperation with the OSCE and through the active involvement of key EU member states is also possible; both sides should maximally coordinate their actions. Europe should also readjust its governance structure.
(11) As for EU assistance, Brussels should consider focusing on fewer priority areas, given the impossibility of having a real impact on all seven priorities of EU strategy with the 719 million Euros available over seven years under the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI). The EU does make differentiated priorities by country, but still there are difficult issues of assuring real effectiveness, going beyond “ticking the boxes.” The expert community supports the present move toward according higher priority to education programs.
(12) Assistance is most needed in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The EU has some leverage on the dire conditions in these countries through its sectoral budget support programs. The impact of the economic crisis might, in combination with other security-related factors, even destabilize Tajikistan, which justifies the new social-policy-orientated program of the EU.
The EU has every interest in fostering donor coordination on the spot. Assistance allocated to energy-rich and fast developing Kazakhstan should be mainly confined to education and support to civil society, while Astana is in a position to buy into European expertise for many policy advice needs. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are only marginally receptive to EU assistance initiatives, where the EU would do well to focus on education for the time being.
(13) In the near future the EU will double the size of its assistance to the Central Asian countries; this means that the efficiency of the recent European programs in the region should
be assessed. The grants to oil-rich Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan should be cut down; educational programs should receive more attention. Larger volumes of aid to Uzbekistan should not be contemplated before the country has demonstrated more interest in its cooperation with the European Union.
The EU should create a database for monitoring reports to be made available on the Commission’s website in the interests of transparency and accountability. There is also a case for administrative separation of project evaluation from project operations to further guarantee objective analyses. The European Parliament should strengthen its oversight role in scrutinizing EU Commission assistance to Central Asia.
(14) The administration of funds for civil society should be simplified.
European analysts agree that the EU’s failure is due to the strategic interests being expressed in such general terms that they lack vivid meaning. The EU relies on a varied and vast set of regulatory acts and technical mechanisms as so-called instruments of action. The experts insist that the EU is not sufficiently equipped to be a hard security actor and so frames its foreign policy as seeking to contribute to the development of a regulatory, rules-based world order with strong reliance on human rights, international law, regional cooperation, and multilateral institutions.
It is commonly believed that Central Asia is in fact the only place in the world that sees the interests of all the major powers—Russia, China, South Asia, and Europe, together with the ubiquitous presence of the United States.
Differentiated Approach to the Central Asian Countries
The EU and Kazakhstan
Brussels is convinced that Kazakhstan and the EU have major opportunities to deepen their bilateral relationship with the objective of bringing the rapid economic development of this rich country into harmony with political and social progress, and its participation in an enlightened conception of international relations.10
European experts think that the workings of the state power system are complex and see different factions acting in different directions. However, the leadership is pursuing a staunch modernization strategy; its multivectoral foreign policy includes a European vector and the clear wish not to be overly dependent on its two big neighbors, Russia and China.11
The markers of the European dimensions of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy are the “Path to Europe” white paper adopted early in 2009 and its OSCE presidency for the year 2010. The “Path to Europe” is an action plan reminiscent of those produced by the European Union.12
10 On the prehistory of the question, see: Kazakhstan i Evropeysky soiuz: rezultaty i gorizonty sotrudnichestva, Brussels, 2007, 315 pp; Kazakhstan, Rossia, Evropeyskiy soiuz: perspektivy strategicheskogopartnerstva. Materialy mezhdunar-odnoy konferentsii, KISI, Almaty, 2009, 200 pp.; M. Laumulin, “EU-Strategie in Zentralasien und die Interessen Kasachstans,” in: EU-Strategie für Zentralasien. Drei Jahre danach, pp. 164-178.; R.S. Serik, “Kazakhstan i strategiia ES v Tsen-tralnoy Azii: problemy i perspektivy,” in: Tsentralnaia Azia v usloviiakh geopoliticheskoy transformatsii i mirovogo eko-nomicheskogo krizisa. 7-ia ezhegodnaia Almatinskaia konferentsia, KISI, Almaty, 2009, pp. 224-233.
11 See: “Le Kazakhstan: Partnaire Stratégique de l’Europe,” in: Diplomatie. Affaires Stratégiques et Relations Internationales, AREION, Paris, 2009. 16 pp.
12 See: Politicheskie i ekonomicheskie interesy Germanii v Kazakhstane i Tsentralnoy Azii, KISI, Almaty, 2010, 132 pp.; Put v Evropu: model sotrudnichestva ES i Tsentralnoy Azii, KNU, Almaty, 2010, 176 pp.
The EU and Kazakhstan envisage the negotiation of a new Agreement that would replace the existing PCA. The content of the new Agreement could be much more developed than the PCA and take as a reference the structure of the new model, Advanced Agreements of the European Neighborhood Policy/Eastern Partnership, which has been completed in the case of Morocco and is well advanced in the case of Ukraine.13
The main feature of these new agreements is that they can cover the whole range of EU competences, combining those stipulated at the time the PCAs were negotiated with those in the spheres of justice, home affairs, and foreign and security policy. However, the trade policy content will be limited by the fact that Kazakhstan is now joining the Customs Union with Russia and Belarus, which excludes the possibility of a free trade agreement with the EU unless done by all three together.
The EU can also consider how close Kazakhstan could be brought toward or into the Eastern Partnership. There are two options. The first, which could already be activated, would be to invite Kazakhstan to join in the work of the region-multilateral working groups of the Eastern Partnership. The second more ambitious option would be to invite Kazakhstan to fully join the Eastern Partnership.
Overall, the EU intends to encourage Kazakhstan “to aim as high as it wants to in terms even ultimately of Council of Europe membership” based on serious political freedoms and greater adherence to human rights requirements, and also to get observer status at the Parliamentary Assembly. The education sector deserves priority support from the EU in ways that go beyond existing programs such as Tempus, which however is well placed to help Kazakhstan’s move to align higher education based on the regulations of the Bologna process. The European Commission should promote the European institutions’ greater involvement (going far beyond the granting of scholarships) in the educational process at the newly opened technical university in Astana.
In its human rights dialog with Kazakhstan, the European Union is determined to insist on strengthening judicial authorization of arrest (approval of arrest warrant); non-interference of the state in legal professions; protection of rights during pre-trial stages of prosecution; de-criminalization of slander and insult; further development of the legislation on freedom of assembly; legislation on freedom of association in line with international standards; promotion of the freedom of expression; liberalization of legislation on the media; and strengthening of the Ombudsman office.14
The EU and Kyrgyzstan
It is commonly believed in the European expert community that the economy of Kyrgyzstan is fairly weak, the situation in the capital being the only exception. When Kazakhstan and Russia joined the Customs Union, commodity export from Kyrgyzstan dropped; and large investments in the hydropower sector have not improved the situation.
The revolution of 2005, which replaced one clan at the top with another, narrowed down political freedom.15
13 See: K. Isaev, “Cooperation between Kazakhstan and the European Union,” Central Asia's Affairs, No. 1, 2010, pp. 8-11; M. Laumulin, “EU-Strategie in Zentralasien und die Interessen Kasachstans,” pp. 164-178.
14 See: M. Emerson, J. Boonstra, N. Hasanova, M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, op. cit., pp. 103-104.
15 See: N. Omarov, “Kyrgyzstan-Evropeysky soiuz: osnovnye napravleniia sotrudnichestva i perspektivy ego razvi-tia,” in: Tsentralnaia Azia: vneshniy vzgliad. Mezhdunarodnaia politika s tsentralnoaziatskoy tochki zreniia, Friedrich Ebert Fund, Berlin, 2008, pp. 222-253; idem, “Vneshniaia politika Kirgizstana posle 24 marta 2005 g.: osnovnye tendentsii i perspektivy,” in: Vneshenpoliticheskie orientatsii stran Tsentralnoy Azii v svete globalnoy transformatsii mirovoy sistemy i mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniy, ed. by A.A. Knyazev, A.A. Migranyan, OFAK, Bishkek, 2009, pp. 155-161.
Within its human rights dialog with Kyrgyzstan, the EU insists on cessation of harassment and persecution of opposition members; liberalization of law restricting the freedom of assembly; cessation of government harassment of human rights groups and activists; independent investigation of allegations of deaths and injuries from torture in police custody; cessation of violence against journalists and guarantees of their safety; and cessation of government intimidation of NGOs.16
The EU and Tajikistan
Tajikistan may be regarded as a fragile but not a failed state. This very poor country suffers grave hardships through extreme poverty compounded by breakdowns in electricity supplies in the winter, despite its endowment with huge hydropower potential. Tajikistan is also highly sensitive to the risks of spillover of the war and chaos in Afghanistan, where the ethnic Tajik population accounts for 35% of the total.17
The Commission and Germany together represent the bulk of aid from Europe. The EU’s aid aims at poverty reduction and avoiding state collapse, with sustained budget support for social welfare programs. This is a controversial program with diverging views between its supporters and opponents; the latter argue that at the present level of corruption all efforts will be in vain.
There are some opportunities for civil society, and this makes the EU’s human rights dialog potentially meaningful, even if there are signs that these existing civil liberties are under threat.
One of the EU’s projects could be to support a political dialog with the Islamists.
The government’s major economic priority is completion of the Rogun dam, for which it would welcome a consortium of international investors. This could be linked to investment in high voltage power lines into South Asia, through Afghanistan into Pakistan and India. While this project is extremely ambitious, it deserves support by the EU since it offers both some chance of advance for the economy and regional links to South Asia.
The EU agenda for the human rights dialog with Tajikistan includes open access to prisons for civil society organizations and the Red Cross; ratification of the Optional Protocols to the Convention against Torture and the Convention on Discrimination against Women; de-criminalization of punishment for defamation; discontinuation of the use of child labor on cotton fields; an article on torture added to the Criminal Code; reforms of the system of free legal aid to the low-income population; and compensation for forced displacement of people due to state needs.18
The EU and Turkmenistan
European experts have pointed out that the second president has made some positive moves, but only very limited ones, compared to the record of his notorious predecessor.19 The population now has freedom of movement within Turkmenistan; the former president’s idiosyncratic education policy of reducing schooling from 11 to 9 years and university from 3 to 2 years were reversed.
16 See: M. Emerson, J. Boonstra, N. Hasanova, M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, op. cit., p. 106.
17 See: R. Khaydarov, “Tadzhikistan-ES: problemy i vozmozhnosti sotrudnichestva,” in: Tsentralnaia Azia: vnesh-niy vzgliad, pp. 360-367.
18 See: M. Emerson, J. Boonstra, N. Hasanova, M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, op. cit., p. 107.
19 See: S. Horak, J. Sir, Dismantling Totalitarianism? Turkmenistan under Berdimuhamedow, Central Asia-Cauca-sus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, Washington, D.C., 2009, 97 pp.
Turkmenistan remains an authoritarian state with zero opportunities for political opposition, media freedom, or NGOs concerned with political and human rights issues. The only NGOs are for family problems and citizen advice bureaus. Experienced observers say that the people know full well what the rules are and what can and cannot be done, which narrows down the field for manifestations of political debate or opposition, or excludes them altogether.
Overall, Turkmenistan entered the 21st century still largely cut off from the rest of the world and having wasted huge amounts of its natural resource wealth on grandiose construction in the capital city. In these circumstances, the room for the EU to develop its relations with Turkmenistan is severely limited, even though an interim agreement on trade policy has now entered into force and a human rights dialog has been set in motion.20
A first step to establish the EU’s credibility has to be a fully accredited delegation. The present “Europa House” exercises some functions of a diplomatic mission on a small scale, without diplomatic accreditation.
As for aid activities, the most plausible at this stage is to support scholarships for students to study in universities outside the country. However, in 2009 the Turkmen authorities denied the exit of Turkmen students heading abroad for the beginning of the new academic year. Those who left earlier were forced to return to Ashghabad due to the security services putting pressure on their families and have been black-listed.
The main strategic question open at this stage is whether the EU will become a large-scale buyer of Turkmen gas, which would be transported across the Caspian Sea to Baku. The moment to make such a proposal is relatively propitious (since the explosion of the gas pipeline to Russia in April 2009) due to the sudden reduction in Russian demand. While the pipeline has now been repaired and a new commercial agreement was signed with Moscow in January 2010, the incident has made Turkmenistan increasingly interested in a multivectoral gas export policy.21
China built and inaugurated its gas pipeline link from Turkmenistan, with transit across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which could carry 40-50 bcm of gas per year when fully operational. Supplies through a pipeline to Iran are now likely to go up from 8 to 14 bcm.
An internal West-East pipeline has been put up for tender, which would take gas west to the Caspian coast, and thence either go north up the Caspian coast to connect with the Russian network, or cross the Caspian to connect with the Nabucco. The gas fields to be developed are deep down and will need foreign technology, and Turkmenistan may be obliged to change its restrictive policy on foreign investment.
The agenda for the human rights dialog with Turkmenistan includes discontinuation of the practice of collective punishment (family members of prisoners should be released); discontinuation of the practice of recruiting prisoners to coercive labor that is hazardous to their health; creation of harmonious conditions for culture and tradition of national minorities; creation of conditions for independent mass media (state censorship should be outlawed); guaranteed possibilities for independent
20 See: E. Ionova, “Mnogovektornost vneshney politiki Ashkhabada,” Rossia i musulmanskiy mir (INION, IV RAN), No. 9, 2009, pp. 98-105; M.T. Laumulin, “Mezhdunarodnoe i vnutripoliticheskoe polozhenie postniyazovskogo Turk-menistana,” Kazakhstan v globalnykh protsessakh, No. 2, 2010, pp. 111-123; No. 3, pp. 26-39; L. Anceschi, “Analyzing Turkmen Foreign Policy in the Berdymukhammedov Era,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2008, pp. 35-48; R. Pomfret, “Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2008, pp. 9-34; L. Anceschi, “External Conditionality, Domestic Insulation and Energy Security: The International Politics of Post-Niyazov Turkmenistan,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2010 (Special Issue: Turkmenistan), pp. 93-114.
21 See: L. Timofeenko, “Problema eksporta energoresursov Turkmenistana,” Rossia i novye gosudarstva Evrazii (IMEMO), No. 11, 2010, pp. 93-100; idem, “Turkmenistan: diversifikatsiia marshrutov eksporta energoresursov,” Rossia i musulmanskiy mir, No. 9, 2010, pp. 85-91; Yu. Fedorov, “Turkmenskie gazovye igry,” Indeks bezopasnosti (PIR-Tsentr, Moscow), No. 2, 2010, pp. 73-86.
public organizations; revision of the NGO law; discontinuation of persecution of dissidents and civic activists; free entrance into and exit from the country (notably for students); and establishment of standards of economic transparency for the use of energy revenues.22
The EU and Uzbekistan
It is commonly believed in the European Union that the lifting in October 2009 by EU foreign ministers of the remaining arms embargo sanction imposed after the 2005 Andijan events was a controversial decision. The EU hopes that this will be taken as encouragement for progressive reforms, whereas independent human rights NGOs protest that this will give a wrong message to the country’s rulers. However, a decision has been made to end the sanctions, and this logically marks the switch to a mode of engagement and the need to work out how to make this effective.
The next step already envisaged will be to open a full EU delegation in Tashkent, which should incorporate a strong public information unit to make the EU better known and understood.
Brussels is still convinced that Uzbekistan remains an extremely difficult environment to work in, given the omnipresent security services exemplified by internal checkpoints on the borders of every region. However Uzbekistan has the ambition of being a leading player in the region and of regaining international prestige as the most populous and geographically central state. This can only come with a greater openness for the movement of people and commerce across its borders, and after profound reforms designed to liberalize internal commerce and agriculture. The EU can advocate this in its political dialog and also try to persuade Uzbekistan to adopt a more constructive and modern attitude toward regional cooperation, particularly in water issues. The EU has several technical assistance crossborder or regional projects in the field of water management, which Uzbekistan is currently blocking or excludes itself from.
The state is investing heavily in infrastructure and education. Its industry depends on protectionist measures (car manufacturers are protected by 200 percent import tariffs) except for free trade within the CIS, from which it has evidently profited. There is a new rail link inside Uzbekistan that extends to Termez on the border with Afghanistan and then links up to the routes to Iran (down to the port of Bandar Abbas). Uzbekistan is concerned with disenclaving its economy to the South Asia, and this fits well with the revision of the transcontinental transport corridor strategies.
European analysts have pointed out that there are almost no functioning EU projects in Uzbekistan at present. An exception is an EU funded (UNDP-executed) rural living standards project, which received favorable evaluation for getting to the grass roots of poverty reduction. Given the extreme difficulties with respect to active operations within Uzbekistan, the education sector provides a plausible area for concentrated effort. For example, the British Council’s offices in Tashkent are a beehive of learning activity for Uzbek students, with a German cultural center next door doing the same. In spite of the regime’s repression, there is a private Westminster University flourishing in Tashkent.23
In the human rights sphere, the EU demands release of human rights defenders and prisoners of conscience; liberalization of accreditation and operation of NGOs; guarantee of freedom of speech and of independent media; implementation of conventions against child labor; alignment of election processes with OSCE commitments; cooperation with U.N. special rapporteurs on human rights is-
22 See: M. Emerson, J. Boonstra, N. Hasanova, M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, op. cit., p. 109.
23 See: Kh. Inomjonov, “Otnosheniia Uzbekistana s Evropeyskim soiuzom,” Tsentralnaia Azia: vneshniy vzgliad, pp. 464-486; M. Laumilin, “Vneshniaia politika Uzbekistana na sovremnnom etape,” Kazakhstan v globalnykh protsessakh, No. 1, 2010, pp. 56-72.
sues; abolition of restrictions on free entrance and exit of the country; cessation of fabricated “terrorist threats” for imprisoning religious leaders; independent investigation of allegations of torture in prisons and punishment for offenders; adoption of a law to permit independent journalism in all areas (economic, political, cultural); liberalization of international cooperation of civic activists and organizations; and legislation to regulate law-enforcement bodies (police).24
From Central Asia to Eurasia
The EU has based its approaches to Central Asia on the idea of placing it in the Eurasian context. It seeks to foster regional cooperation among the five states and is allocating 30 percent of its budget to regional projects. It comes to Central Asia with a presumption in favor of regional cooperation, the prospects of which look vague. But has the regional dimension of the EU Central Asia strategy been adequately conceived for the 21st century? This question is suggested by the great and growing regional role of China and India.
The EU Central Asia Strategy has already seen significant development of the regional dimension to the political dialogs between the EU and all five Central Asian states. Foreign minister meetings are being held to discuss broad political and security issues, sector-specific dialog circuits for education, water and the environment, and the rule of law, even though they were sporadic and took place within a very short period between 2008 and 2010. No specific results of these activities are visible so far; there are some sharp contrary developments happening outside these meetings (e.g. the current breakdown of the regional electricity grid). The EU, however, seeks to promote a gradual movement of ideas among the Central Asian participants in favor of regional cooperation.
The objective limits to Central Asian regionalism are evident, and this is reflected in a shift in EU spending, reducing the weight of regional programs and increasing that of bilateral ones.
At the same time, there is also a case for a second concept of regional cooperation, which we can call “external” rather than “internal” regionalism. External regionalism would involve cooperative activity with neighbors external to the region, whereas internal regionalism is restricted to the five Central Asian states. With its modest population size, Central Asian regional cooperation does not have much potential if it is not part of wider economic openness. While there are some activities which intrinsically have a cross-border regional cooperative dimension, such as border management itself, transport corridors and, above all, water management, it is nonetheless the case that these three examples have vital cross-border dimensions linking to neighbors external to the region with transcontinental dimensions. Thus, border management largely concerns drug trafficking, where Central Asia is just a transit passage between Afghanistan and Europe, Russia and China.
The European Commission is seeking to develop links between the Eastern Partnership and Central Asia through regional projects joining the two regions, especially in the energy, transport, and environment sectors. However, what is lacking is a framework for wider Eurasian cooperative projects in which the EU’s activities in Central Asia would also link to Russia, or China, or South Asia, or combinations thereof.
The political priorities of the states of the region can also be viewed in this light.
Kazakhstan looks west to Europe with its “Path to Europe” program as a strategic move to avoid exclusive dependence on Russia and China, and as part of its modernization drive.
Turkmenistan, while remaining a closed and repressive political system, nonetheless frames its development priority in the opening of gas pipeline connections toward all points of the compass: Russia,
24 See: M. Emerson, J. Boonstra, N. Hasanova, M. Laruelle, S. Peyrouse, op. cit., p. 111.
China, Iran, and potentially across the Caspian Sea to Europe, if the EU were to make a credible and major offer.
Kyrgyzstan’s economy is now substantially dependent on a transit trade function for Chinese goods to flow to Kazakhstan and Russia.
Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are concerned with disenclaving themselves to the south with transport corridors through Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan to the Gulf and Indian Ocean.
There are important long-term implications for the EU’s relations with Russia, China, and India, as well as the shorter-term priority of finding some kind of political resolution of the Afghanistan imbroglio. The EU has already moved in this direction; it has regrouped Central Asia with South Asia, rather than in a former Soviet Union group. The EU has moved partly in this direction by grouping Central Asia with South Asia for the purpose of its aid administration.
Some think that a Eurasian frame is more suitable for the EU than just a link to South Asia. In this context, Central Asia is unique as a landlocked region sitting amidst the Big Four of Eurasia: Russia, China, India, and the EU.
Today, the EU has to concentrate on a new picture of the multipolar world: there are new geopolitical players (or old players with new images), such as Russia, China, India, and the European Union itself. The new picture calls for new approaches and creates new strategic challenges—preserving order and the spirit of cooperation.
The EU has reason to take further steps in its conception of the multiple regional dimensions of its foreign policy, which already has the Eastern Partnership, Northern Dimension, Union for the Mediterranean, Black Sea Synergy, and now the Central Asia Strategy. Each of these initiatives has its rationale.
What is missing, however, is an overarching Eurasian dimension, looking for ways to devise cooperative ventures reaching across these several regions into the wider Eurasian landmass, adapted to the needs of the emerging multipolar world. Such an initiative would, inter alia, be a constructive move toward Russia after the awkward period in which the launching of the Eastern Partnership has been seen as deepening the segmentation of the post-Soviet space in EU policies.
European analysts are convinced that the present “internal” regionalism of the Central Asian strategy should continue its role of facilitating a dialog with and among the five states. But major issues should find their place in “external” regionalism that could be framed as part of a wider Eurasian strategy.
Central Asia and the Security Problems of the European Union
The European Union is exploring how the Central Asia strategy might fit into a global concept of EU foreign policy. The EU already has relations with most of the world’s regions, including sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America, as well as the European neighborhood, and bilaterally through strategic partnerships with China, India, and Russia.
Brussels is looking for ways and methods to unite the trends and contacts into a single vector in which Central Asia should be given a niche.
The European strategists are aware that the region is sparsely populated. However, due to its geographic location, it is an important special case, given that it sees the presence of virtually all the world’s global actors at a time when a new world order is in the making. The new assembly of major
powers might as well try to come to terms with one another in this relatively simple and unthreatening case, since they will be faced with far more dramatic challenges elsewhere. In this respect, Central Asia could be of some exemplary importance for the future world order.
European analysts have concluded that the world is entering a new multipolar epoch, with emerging or re-emerging major powers—China, India, Russia, and Brazil, to which the EU may also be added. Europe intends to contribute to a stable regulatory world order; recently this has become an inalienable part of EU policy as declared by the Lisbon Treaty.
Other actors are inclined to use force to a much greater extent than the EU. This is certainly the case in Central Asia where the actual political environment is so distant from the European values of human rights and democracy, and where Russia and China are now the most prominent external actors, with Russia pursuing an ultra-realist policy, and China, very present economically, but abstaining from any kind of regulatory influence beyond a general doctrine of political non-interference.
Brussels proceeds in its Central Asian policy from the assumption that the region does not threaten the European Union; there are three indirect factors, however, which might affect the European Union as well as other actors.
■ First, insecurity of energy supplies. Central Asia can contribute to the expansion and diversification of supplies of oil, especially from Kazakhstan, and gas, especially from Turkmenistan. The exploitation of energy resources can be framed by regulations of environmental sustainability, corporate governance, and income distribution. Diversification of oil and gas supplies dilutes the monopolistic concentration of energy power, which is in principle desirable both as a matter of economic policy and in order to lessen the hazard of energy supplies as a method of geopolitical manipulation, which is typical of Russia’s current policies.
■ Second, al-Qae‘da and Talibanization. Central Asia is adjacent to the war in Afghanistan, which is being fought to protect Europe and the world from the terrorist threat of al-Qae‘da, with logistical routing of supplies for NATO forces through Central Asia. These routes have to be maintained and can hardly be criticized as an unprincipled pursuit of interests. Central Asia is not, at least for the time being, seeing a spillover of Talibanization as in Pakistan, but there are dangers of spreading Islamic radicalization in Central Asia, with Europe inclined to advocate a dialog with moderate Islamist movements, and their inclusion in the political processes.
■ Third, drug trafficking. Central Asia is also part of the route for drug supplies from Afghanistan to Europe, which is a matter of vital concern for the public health of Europe and its society. The EU supports a sustained effort to combat drug trade and addiction in Central Asia and should explore ways to extend this into effective cooperation with Russia and Eastern Eu-rope.25
The values-based agenda, as can be extracted from official documents, is long and complex. Political values can be discussed, but for countries faced with huge economic development challenges, the priorities most often begin with basic issues of poverty reduction, food security, economic development, and environmental security. The EU has aid instruments aimed at several points on this agenda, but the scale is modest compared to the massive investments now being made by China, particularly in economic infrastructures.
This means that the EU’s efforts have to be profiled very distinctly, the grants for social and educational programs being cases in point. Expansion of the education program could prove the most
25 For more detail, see: G.K. Kydyrkhanova, Borba s narkotrafikom i mezhdunarodnym terrorizmom v sotrudnichestve stran Tsentralnoy Azii i Evropeayskogo soiuza, KazNU, Almaty, 2009, 121 pp.
effective and durable way to introduce European civil, professional, and cultural values and standards into Central Asia.
It is evident that the EU is making a substantial effort to help Central Asian states improve their highly problematic human rights situations. The legitimacy of this activity is based on the common regulatory principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, to which all Central Asian and EU states have subscribed, coupled with the voluntary willingness of the Central Asian states to enter into a human rights dialog with the EU.
The EU is well placed to do this, since the human rights Conventions of the Council of Europe, to which all the EU member states adhere, are based on the Universal Declaration and are further developed through the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. It is notable that no one else among the major external partners of Central Asia is willing or able to engage in a human rights dialog with Central Asian states, certainly not Russia or China, or even the United States at present.
In contrast to human rights, democracy is not internationally codified legally. There are open questions concerning the length of the time horizon—from medium to long-term—over which major progress might be expected in Central Asia. The EU is cautious in pushing for Western-style democracy in the political and cultural contexts of Central Asia. The major contribution of the EU at this stage would be in helping to create a rules-bound context in Central Asia conducive to political change. Beyond domestic legal systems this should also mean the entrenchment of European and international law in the bilateral relations the EU establishes with the Central Asian republics. The EU is well placed to do this, given that its foreign policies are typically carried out through contractual relations with third states. The Partnership and Cooperation Agreements with the Central Asian states are the vehicle for this, and these agreements can be progressively renewed and deepened, as is planned with Kazakhstan in the first instance.
European analysts believe that Central Asian regional cooperation should be supported where it can clearly deliver benefits, but the EU should not imagine some transplant of its own experience of regional integration in Central Asian soil. The Central Asian region is too small, heterogeneous, and enclaved between very big neighbors for intra-regional cooperation to become a main driver of progress, as has been the case in Europe. The quest for a modern Central Asian regional identity is something that should be viewed sympathetically, with the chance that this would naturally lead to some authentic regulatory foundations. The development of several regional policy dialogs between the EU and the five states together could help to foster this.
On the other hand, the concept of regionalism advocated by the EU for Central Asia could be supplied in a more outward looking or “extroverted” direction, in addition to the quest for intra-regional cooperation. This links to the issue of transcontinental cooperation around Central Asia or a Eurasian dimension to EU policies, and the quest for cooperative multi-polarity.
This is the new challenge, given the passing of the unipolar U.S.-dominated epoch and the rise of the new or renewed major powers, almost all of which are present in Central Asia. The challenge is extremely difficult, given the different foreign policy philosophies currently on display between non-democratic Russia and China, which joined the SCO club, on the one hand, and the Central Asia states agreeing on a strong doctrine of political non-interference versus the democratic EU, U.S., Turkey, and India, which are all inclined to perhaps different degrees to advocate a different regulatory foreign policy concept, on the other.
According to European analysts, there are at least three spheres of policy where the EU, Central Asian countries, and other powers (Russia, China, the U.S., India, etc.) can work together.
■ First, cooperation to combat the common security threats coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan, in particular in the form of drugs and radical Islamic terrorism.
■ Second, the regional water-hydropower nexus, where major solutions could best rely on international consortia with all major players present.
■ Third, optimization of transcontinental transport routes for trade.
As for organizational initiatives, the EU might, if invited, become an observer member of the SCO. Or, alternatively, the EU meetings with the five Central Asian states could for some purposes be extended to include Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.
Moreover, since the EU has decided to have a Central Asia strategy, it is obliged as a matter of strategic consistency to articulate this in its world view.
Conclusion
For obvious reasons, the EU needs Central Asia as a sustainable source of natural resources. This is not all, however: Brussels is convinced that it should expand its regulatory values to the region.
On the other hand, the European states (NATO members in particular) play an important role in combating the threats emanating from Afghanistan. The European Union does not hail the steadily increasing involvement of the United States in Eurasia and has to take Russia’s interests into account. Recently, European experts have come to the conclusion that the EU will balance out China’s increasing influence in the region, since Russia has stepped aside. These factors should be taken into account when formulating Central Asia’s position in relation to the European Union.26
In the near future, the relations between Central Asia and the EU will be affected by the geo-economic situation and geopolitical factors, such as Washington’s new strategy in Central Asia; the vague military-strategic prospects in Afghanistan; the relations between Russia and the West; the world economic crisis; and the much greater importance of energy sources and food safety.
This can either positively or negatively affect the relations between Europe and Central Asia. Much will depend on the political will of the actors involved in the geopolitical intricacies. One thing is clear: Europe and Central Asia need each other for objective reasons.
26 See: M.T. Laumulin, “The EU and Central Asia: The View from Central Asia,” Central Asia's Affairs, No. 4, 2009, pp. 20-24; idem, “Central Asia in the Foreign Policy Strategy of the European Union,” in: New Europe (Brussels), Special Report: Kazakhstan, No. 878, 2010, pp. 20-21.
