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20 Romanian J. Eur. Aff. 120 (2020)
The European Union Strategy on Central Asia: Out of Game?

handle is hein.journals/rojaeuf20 and id is 250 raw text is: ROMANIAN JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN AFFAIRS The European Union Strategy on Central Asia: out of game? Laszl6 Vasa' Abstract: The Council of the European Union adopted in June 2019 its new EU Strategy on Central Asia. Besides the Eastern Partnership, the Central-Asian region is one of the most relevant areas for the EU, so determining and shaping its development priorities were of paramount importance. In this study, based on the developments and feedbacks in recent months, I would like to demonstrate how the weak EU image due to this document will be strengthened and why it is not suitable for reaching the goals which are probably even not existing. My hypotheses are: 1) in fact, the EU does not have any clear and real strategy focusing on Central Asia, 2) the EU is losing out on the game of big and middle powers interested in the region, 3) the EU cannot exploit the economic potentials of the region. Keywords: Central Asia, strategy, foreign policy, soft power Introduction In Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, on 7 July 2019, the European Union introduced its new Strategy on Central Asia2 ratified the previous month, on 17 June, by the European Council, Brussels. Indeed, this new strategy is the updated version of the 2007 strategy. This previous version has been highly criticized on the one hand due to the lack of clear goals, on the other hand due to the seemingly important but in fact marginal topics from the perspectives of Central Asian countries. While this recent strategy is meant to be a more updated and tailor-made version to the current conditions, the consonance of focus, goal and content is still missing from it. The EU has been criticized for its weak foreign policy, hesitation and prioritizing marginal issues not only from outside but by member states, too (Molnir, 2018). This opinion seems to be strengthened by the ratifying commission as well, since opposed to the year-long consultation they failed to create a strategy that focuses on EU interests as well as on the interests and historical characteristics of the target countries in question. The concept of Central Asia has several international explanations including the historical Soviet definition, the UNESCO explanation, and the modern geopolitical one. The name Central Asia as a distinct geographical termination first appeared in the book of Prussian Alexander von Humboldt, who is considered to be one of the founders of the science of geography (Humboldt, 1843). According to him, the term Central Asia refers to the Asian regions without sea exit. Following this line of thought, UNESCO defines the Central Asian region to cover Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, and Afghanistan (Dani et al. 1992). According to the Soviet definition, which was used in the 20th century, Central Asia also included some Chinese territories such as Inner-Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang province, but it excluded Kazakhstan3. However, in this current study the most wide- Laszl6 Vasa is research professor at Szechenyi Istvan University and senior researcher and chief advisor of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hungary. E-mail: laszlo.vasa@ifat.hu. 2 htts://wwwconsilium.eurOpa.eu/media/39178/stIO221-enl9.hdf (accessed 02 March 2020) 3 Great Soviet Encyclopedia electronic version httns:J/slovar.cc/enc/bse/2057489.html (accessed 27 February 2020) 120 Vol. 20, No. 2, December 2020

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