Opening remarks at the Conference “Central Asia in the Face of Crises: Cooperation Opportunities and Vulnerabilities”

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Central Asia enthusiasts,

It is a pleasure for me to have this opportunity to address such a distinguished crowd of diplomats, researchers and Central Asia fans.

Finding answers that the topic of today’s conference:  Central Asia in the Face of Crises: Cooperation Opportunities and Vulnerabilities poses is urgent in the current geopolitical and security environment. And I am grateful to the organisers for pulling such a distinguished group together.

I would say that just over the past year when I took up my current position the situation has changed dramatically. We are still struggling to deal with the socio-economic impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on the Central Asian societies. While the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, dramatic events of January in KZ and the Russian invasion of Ukraine pose new and different challenges.

I see that our main challenges are: (i) shrinking space for manoeuvre for our Central Asian partners following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, (ii) West’s dented credibility following the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the need to create new credibility, (iii) dealing with the old actors in the region such as China and Turkey who are increasing their presence, (iv) how can we credibly and meaningfully respond to the calls for stronger partnership with the EU which we hear all the time from our Central Asian partners. These are the questions we need to start finding answers quickly.

Where do we stand now in the EU – Central Asia relationship? We have a solid basis for cooperation outlined in the EU – Central Asia Strategy adopted in 2019. Even though we could hardly predict all the developments that we have encountered now in such a short time span, the Strategy remains relevant. Its strength is that it was adopted through a broad consultative process with our partners in the region, researchers and think tanks, and it reflects a broad need for cooperation for mutual benefit.

If one compares the two strategies – the 2007 and the 2019 ones – you can see that the EU became a stronger foreign policy player, developed or enhanced its own strategies on its role as a foreign and security policy actor in the global affairs, on connectivity, and on Afghanistan among others.

As the relationship matured, Central Asian countries became more interested in the EU as a leading player in climate change mitigation, connectivity or green economy and as an actor that could also help in the reform and modernisation processes of the countries. These complemented issues such as human rights and the rule of law, economic development, business and investment, security and energy from the first Strategy.

Also as the Central Asian countries - which I must point out, are all very different, as we know - started to work closer as a region, the agenda expanded. The EU was one of the first to develop cooperation in formats such as C5 + 1 – all Central Asian partners plus the EU. It has become a very popular form of cooperation for others from Russia to the United States. The new Strategy sums up the focus as resilience, prosperity and regional cooperation. This creates regional resilience.

In the current political and security environment, however, we need to both re-prioritise issues on our cooperation agenda and to intensify the implementation of the Strategy.

An issue that has significantly grown in importance since I took up this position last July is security as the focus of our meeting today rightly reflects. The uncertain situation on the border with Afghanistan which can spill over into Central Asia, concerning developments in GBAO, and the deadly border clashes at the Tajik- Kyrgyz border are of major concern also to the EU. At the same time, the need to reform the army and the security sector, increase resilience of the societies to radicalisation and violent extremism is evident.

At the High Level Political and Security Dialogue that recently took place in Brussels, our Central Asian partners came with a list of suggestions where we could focus the implementation of the EU – Central Asia Strategy on its security aspects.

In the wake of the post-Covid pandemic, the resources to deal with the old and new challenges have unfortunately decreased in our programming. It means that we now need to be more creative in how we work. The EU together with the Member States has been the biggest donor in the region. In addition to regular funds allocated for programming, the Team Europe Initiatives in water, energy and climate change and in digitalisation will have an important role to play.

Member states need to be more active in these initiatives. All of us need to pool together both our political, economic and financial weight. This naturally means working together with IFA’s and private sector.

Implementation of the Global Gateway Strategy will be a test for how serious we are as a global actor. We need to start working on beefing it up with concrete initiatives and projects. This work is now under way, and two projects are being tailored in Central Asia. Slowly but steadily we are also updating and upgrading our bilateral agreements.

With Kazakhstan, the new generation Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement is in place, the work on the EPCAs with the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan is complete. They also can benefit from the Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus in trade. We are also working with Tajikistan on both GSP + and the EPCA. In 2019, an EU Delegation opened in Turkmenistan, so we now have EU representation in all five Central Asian States. This a significant move from the EU.

Everywhere I visit there is more wish to cooperate with the EU. The EU is seen as a predictable and reliable partner in the increasingly polarised world. However, even though we do not aim to compete, the consequence of the current polarisation is that there are now more risks attached to cooperating with the EU too. These voices have increased in the last few years. And this we need to think this carefully through.

When Ursula von der Leyen recorded her address at the EU –Central Asia Forum last year, she hash tagged it “Central Asia Matters”. Since then it has also become my motto. We must underline this for our partners as well.

For the EU Central Asia has grown in importance in many areas: in support of the EU’s strategic autonomy, in the area of security from countering terrorism to drug trafficking, in the area of addressing the consequences of climate change or tackling environmental disasters, to name just the top of the list.

Here cooperation with the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation is key. Multilateralism is at the core of the European Union, and we must support it – and defend it. It is also an inclusive format that offers cooperation instead of competition as world politics become increasingly polarised.

Against the backdrop of hard security challenges, it is easy to forget other aspects of the comprehensive security: economic security, environmental security, human rights, women’s and youth empowerment to name just a few. Central Asian population is young and growing, and it poses its own challenges and opportunities. It is clear that more attention needs to be paid to women and youth in our work too. Coherently, consistently and together, both with the governmental but also with civil society organizations.

Finally, to this distinguished audience of researchers and academics here, I would like to say that we definitely need more research on different aspects of contemporary Central Asia.

We need to understand the processes that are taking place in the societies. As the reforms in many aspects have been slow, the Soviet legacy might still seem strong. But countries and societies have changed over the past 30 years of independence.

30 years of independence is a significant milestone. It is important that we support the sovereignty and independence. It’s important that we support our partners in today’s challenges which is more important than ever.

I will stop here, but I would like to re-iterate a question I posed at the beginning to the panellists present today that:

How can we respond to the growing challenges and pressure in Central Asia, and to do it in the most efficient way?

Look forward to our discussions today. Thank you for your attention.