ABSTRACT

This chapter explores the European Union (EU) emerging relations with post-Soviet Central Asia, tracing the Union's involvement with, and interests in, the five Central Asian states from their independence in 1991. It demonstrates how the EU's engagement with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan gradually rose to a new level in the last decade, culminating in the launch of an EU Strategy for Central Asia. The chapter discusses that Europe's increased involvement in Central Asia emerges as a test case for EU foreign policy, as the Union faces a major external policy challenge in the region to balance its strategic interests and its values-based foreign policy principles. Central Asia has long been outside of the EU main sphere of interest, tucked away in the outskirts of Europe's eastern periphery. The terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001 and the subsequent launch of the military campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan revealed the geostrategic importance of Central Asia.