Conference Proceedings: The European Union’s New Strategy for Central Asia: A Game Changer or More of the Same?

This paper provides an early assessment of the European Union’s (EU) new strategy for Central Asia,2 which was launched in May 2019. In particular, it evaluates whether the new strategy can enable the EU to further optimise its role as an external actor in Central Asia and whether it can ensure that the EU’s involvement in the region produces tangible and lasting results, especially in view of contributing to the sustainable development of the Central Asian countries.

Over the past two decades, the EU’s role in Central Asia has gradually evolved from an invisible and ineffective donor to that of a more full-fledged external actor. The strategy that the EU developed back in 20073 played an important part in enhancing the EU’s role in Central Asia. Nevertheless, 12 years after the strategy was launched, the EU still punches below its weight in the region, where it clearly plays second fiddle to Russia and China. And admittedly, it is still facing substantial challenges in having a tangible impact in a region considered as one of the most authoritarian in the world.4 Hence, the question remains how the EU can optimise its role as an external actor in Central Asia to ensure that its involvement in the region produces tangible and lasting results, and effectively contributes to the sustainable development of the Central Asian countries. Now that the EU has launched its long-awaited new strategy for Central Asia, the question is also whether the new strategy will be up to this challenge, and thus whether it will effectively enable the EU to further optimise its role as an external actor in Central Asia.