It has been a busy year for the five Central Asian republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Over the past few months, many high-level foreign visitors have travelled to one or multiple countries in the region. From Vladimir Putin to Xi Jinping, Josep Borrell, David Cameron, Olaf Scholz, Mark Rutte, and others – all aim to strengthen their ties with the region.[2]
Central Asia is more and more in the spotlight. After the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there has been an increased interest in the region – especially from the West.
This situation is often portrayed with the cliché of a ‘new Great Game’, drawing a parallel with the 19th century when the British and Russian Empires fought over influence in the region. Especially in some publications during the last decade, Central Asia is described as “a major battlefield [in] the geopolitical games of the world’s greatest powers”,[3] as “an arena of great power rivalry [where] the new Great Game has started”,[4] or a location where “a multi-state competition for influence and even control of these new states” has arisen.[5] Many other publications have reported on the region through the lens of the former Soviet Union, or as “Russia’s backyard" where the gardener is currently not at home.[6]
However, this strong focus presents a distorted view and the Great Game parallel does not really apply to the current situation. Whereas the empires of the 19th century fought over physical territory and conquered this from local rulers, the current courtiers rather jostle for influence over the sovereign states of Central Asia – amid the complex geopolitical dynamics of the region.[7]
In the current competition over influence in Central Asia, rather than being passive pawns in a new Great Game, the states of the region are rather emerging out of the shadows. They show actively and confidently that they are actors with agency who know how to balance their interests, and use their relations with larger powers to their own advantage. As Murtazashvili and Umarov recently argued: Central Asia is “nobody’s backyard”.[8]
In line with this, EU documents argue that the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the following “geopolitical situation”, in combination with the security threats as a consequence of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, offer “opportunities for the Central Asian countries to emerge as regional political actors in their own right”.[9] For many of these countries this would also suggest a delicate balancing act between primarily Russia and China and a desire to involve other third countries and actors in the region as well, including Iran, Türkiye and the US.
The EU is another actor that is attempting to increase its influence in Central Asia, after it has gradually stepped up its engagement with the region since the first EU strategy for Central Asia in 2007. This report explores how the European Union can do so, answering the following research questions:
The methodology applied to this report is based on a combination of literature desk research and interviews in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan in April and May 2024. The authors are grateful for the insights that the various policy makers, diplomats, journalists, entrepreneurs, civil society representatives and others have shared with them.[10]