The EU's Central Asia Strategy's Future Runs through Brussels
Radu-Alexandru CUCUTA
May 2010
CEPS and FRIDE's analysis of the impact of the European Union's Strategy for Central Asia is one of the few works that try to scrutinize the EU's foreign policy initiatives. After almost three years in which the highlighted document has directed the EU's foreign policy actions in the region, CEPS', FRIDE's and the Open Society Institute's efforts result in a compelling public and foreign policy analysis that tries to underpin the EU's failures in the region and make suggestions as to what are the main priorities the European political leaders should pursue.
The effort of CEPS and FRIDE's research staff is all the more so impressive as political and theoretical approaches towards the region's dynamic are increasingly complex - the revival of geopolitical thinking (especially in the form of energy security issues) as a compelling explicative narrative of the regional politics in Central Asia, the re-emergence of the multipolarity vs. unipolarity realist accounts of the 21st century's future, constructivist or cultural approaches (that try to tackle or explain both the success and the failures of Islamic militancy in the five Central Asian States), or the liberal/institutionalist and functionalist approaches that made their case with the EU itself in the academic field. Trying to plot a course for the EU policy among the theoretical quagmire and political quagmire of Central Asia is therefore a very difficult task and, on the whole, the document makes a very compelling case for continuing and intensifying the EU's actions in the region.
The most important aspect of the paper is however the document's approach to the inlaid conflicts and inadequacies within the European Union itself. The document acknowledges the different interests of the EU members, the organizational challenges the EU must face on its own right and the normative versus pragmatic approach the EU has in international politics. It is not the purpose of the paper to solve questions that lie at the heart of the European Union and that the past two decades (the most successful in promoting political integration) haven't managed to solve. The problem is however that a coherent Central Asian Strategy (and a coherent foreign European foreign policy) require changes in the EU decision making procedures and institutional outlook the organization and the member states are unwilling and unable to make on short or medium term. Acknowledging that many aspects of the EU's foreign presence are mere declaratory procedures (that have no substantive results) is important. The problem is their change requires more ardent interests at stake in order for the organization to change (or, as the authors point, the EU can succeed, as it did on the past, by avoiding the more pressing matters at hand and focusing on the collateral aspects of their cooperation and "spill" their success into the core political priorities later). Central Asia is a venue for success for the European Union, the authors try to emphasize, precisely because it is not a pressing and divisive issue like the ESDP.
The EUCAM's final report envisages several challenges and priorities the EU must address in the near future. Bolstered by the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Spanish Presidency and the new High Commissioner are invited to critically reassess the success of the three-year old strategy and make the necessary steps for enacting under a new strategic outlook come 2011. The underlying assumption of the document is that the EU leaders must factor into their decision-making procedures the need for an extended funding of EU initiatives in Central Asia. Whereas the lack of funds has a definite impact on the strategy's capacity to deliver on its objectives, one has to notice that the problem is common for many EU foreign policy initiatives.
The Eastern Partnership supporters as well as the Neighborhood Policy adepts seldom complain that in order to make these initiatives work, they need better funding. In the end, without debating the actual priorities of the EU budget (in terms of foreign policy) may leave the present picture intact - a handful of underfunded and understaffed initiatives that serve only to entertain a climate of dialogue (without any enduring envisaged political consequences). That is why one of the specific recommendations of the final report is that funding should be prioritized (the most promising projects should receive European backing) - although there are few fields the document has considered worth of being put on hold, in spite of the document's appeal to a critical evaluation of the strategy's three years old existence. It is useful to notice that even if European funding for the strategy has risen to an important 719 million euros sum, the amount is still dwarfed by Russian or Chinese investments (and the sums are not that impressive given that they are divided over a period of seven years to five potential beneficiary states). In comparison, one has to note however that the authors underlined several other misplaced investments - according to the data of the report Japan is said to have spent a total of 2 billion dollars over a span of only 12 years with few results to justify the expense.
The main divide the authors of the final report identify is that between the interests of the EU's members and the normative world-order view of the EU. The alternatives are a bit bluntly specified by the researchers. In their view, the EU has only two options. On the one hand, the EU can step back and stop pursuing a value-oriented policy as a meaningful actor in the Central Asian Region, because of the conflict between EU interests and its view of the future world order. On the other hand, the authors consider that finding a way to combine both the value-oriented foreign policy approach of the EU and the pursuance of legitimate security and political interests is both possible and worthwhile. In the authors' exact terms, the EU can "make a special effort to apply its principled approach in ways that are realistically operational in this difficult political environment".
The black and white view between the ultra pragmatic approach and the more compromising shades of the principled yet legitimate new strategy is misleading for one reason. The conflict between interests and values is in itself a somewhat conflicted view of the EU - the principled approach dictates that adherence to principles highlights the interests of the political actor. Operating with conflicting interests and principles is a matter of functional incoherence that results from two conflicting views on foreign policy. As long as the principles are deducted from an ideological preference order incompatible with the reasoning schemes behind the mapping of the political interests of the EU, the problem still remains. Operating with two reasoning and conceptual schemes at the decision-making level of the EU may be comfortable from a compromising point of view the Council is based upon (or a majority seeking compromise, as the new Lisbon Treaty envisages). As long as interests are deducted according to a different scheme as the one that establishes the foreign policy principles, the opposition will always be there and meaningful compromises will always point back to the founding divide.
Moreover, the authors of the report disregard a third possible option - that of the EU continuing to pursue a lax line of policy, as it has done for the last three years. In terms of problematic endeavours, nothing is more durable that acting measures (that are kept in place in order to ensure an institutional build-up that can be used in the near or distant future, when political circumstances may differ). The EU is adept at these kinds of procedures, and there are strong reasons for which the present state of affairs may continue. Redrawing Central Asian strategy may require bold political moves member states are unwilling or unable to make. At a time when the Union is increasingly troubled by its own political track and governance performance, maintaining the present compromise that mixes palliative measures and certain well-targeted programs (as the authors have undoubtedly shown in the case of education programs).
The final report also pleads for a meaningful continuation of cooperation with Kazakhstan in the form of a comprehensive treaty that can allow future interaction between the EU and the Central Asian country. At the same time, the last strategic recommendation is that the EU must not neglect the fact that, although intra-regional political cooperation is a worthwhile objective, the EU needs to engage the neighbors of the region (especially Russia and China) and build the Central Asia Strategy considering the wider interests in has in these areas (in terms of energy, transport and security).
The specific recommendations of the report cover a wide array of functional, political and institutional problems the strategy has encountered. While pleading for a increase in diplomatic presence in the region, the report also acknowledges the fact that coordination between member states' action and the Commission is needed. The dialogue process in the human rights field must be carefully continued (in order to avoid its over-formalization and in order to ensure a more productive output).
Establishing clear benchmarks for the Central Asian countries, as part of an EU official document setting out priorities and strategies of the organization is nevertheless a much more difficult task (that has probably more to do with the "strategic" level of recommendations than with the "specific" one). On the one hand, as the authors acknowledge, the rule of law is a very problematic and hard to pursue objective in authoritarian regimes such as those in Central Asia. The practical problem is the definition or the standards to which the EU abides and which the EU tries to encourage. The formal definition of the concept sets some general criteria for its enactment - predictable, general and equitable provisions of the law system. Consequently, as the authors underline, according to the "thin" interpretation, the rule of law can exist in non-democratic regimes. The substantive definition, to which members states themselves are held accountable, the rich jurisprudence of the ECHR and its subsequent incorporation into national law, all tend to point towards a much more complex meaning and political use of the concept.
Establishing the benchmarks needed for evaluating the progress Central Asian countries may make requires the EU to controversially define what the rule of law is - a prospect that may either hamper Central Asian policy (as meeting the benchmarks, may easily become a very formal enterprise) or undermine the credibility of EU's normative perspective. At the same time, from a substantive point of view, setting up the benchmarks themselves is open to important debate. Setting qualitative indicators is problematic and quantitative collection of data in poorly bureaucratized and institutionalized regimes, such as those in Central Asia may prove counterproductive.
It can be argued however that EU enlargement has developed important experience regarding this process. On the whole, the enlargement experienced didn't manage to solve all the problems pertaining the transition from communism to democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Problems remain and the danger of trading elusive benchmarks (which are in themselves misleading indicators) for real progress is not negligible. Furthermore, the democracy status cannot be accounted for or attained by purely democratic means - recognizing a state as a functioning democracy (albeit an inexperienced one) is a political act that cannot be subjected to bureaucratic procedures.
At the same time, it is very difficult to separate, from the same substantive point of view, human rights issues from the rule of law. The same difficulty comes when discussing the relation between democracy and the rule of law - it is extremely difficult to "pragmatically" divide democracy into self-sufficient components such as human rights or rule of law without hampering or delegitimizing core European values. Of course, as the authors point, democracy exports are an unwanted and deeply mistrusted commodity following the US' stance towards the Middle East during the Bush administration. In spite of this, is it tantamount difficult to consider that the Russian model of "sovereign democracy" or the Chinese ambiguous political dynamics are democracy's ideological equivalents. While autocratic regimes may feel at rest when interacting with other autocratic regimes and mistrust political dialogue along the guidelines-to-democracy path, there is no question that the autocratic frame of government outside the Western world has been articulated into a coherent governing program. For the time being, the Russian and Chinese ways are not really politically exportable models.
At the same time, the problem, as the authors rightly point to is not necessarily an insurmountable task. The EU has economic deals with many regimes that do not uphold democratic standards. Most energy exporting countries are autocratic regimes at best. Pursuing pragmatic interests hasn't been a morally or politically dividing issue when it comes to the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela or Iran (although the EU has placed much rhetoric emphasis on the internal problems of these countries). Diversifying energy transport routes and suppliers could follow the same path. Only by having securitized the democratic transition problems in its dialogue with the Central Asian countries and by securitizing its energy supply map, the EU has made these issues matter and has found itself in this awkward position. At the same time, whereas certain observers question the supplying states' political attitude concerning possible trade partners (Eugene Rogan considers, for example, that the Arab states' bid to use oil as a political weapon has been successful only in one instance), European approach to the matter is much more hesitant - in the end, the mutual benefit should outweigh the Central Asian's regime reluctance to engage in more meaningful economic cooperation and trade.
Another important recommendation is that the European states follow a more coordinated and coherent approach to energy issues. The report notes in a somewhat ironic manner that whereas the Union has been supporting and promoting several energy-related projects for over seven years, without laying the foundations to either of its most important projects, China has managed to complete a pipeline carrying Kazakh oil in three years and a half. Once more, the authors point to the fact that a more robust economical approach to the situation in the region may seem a more appropriate mean of forwarding European interests.
One interesting feature of the final report is nonetheless the criticism directed towards the EU's "over-use" of the term strategy. The Central Asian document of the EU falls way off the standards of "an initiative of broad and real importance backed up by adequate instruments of action". However, the instruments of the strategy are a mix of normative objections and overtly technical procedures that may seem far from the objective results the final report tries to encompass.
Another very important aspect is the document's form and the way in which it emphasizes its arguments. Whereas the Preface of the document tries to set forward a list of policy recommendations, the chapter dealing with the "rationale" of a Central Asian Strategy lists the same strategic recommendations as the arguments that sustain the rationale. This almost Hegelian, auto-referential construction of the document is probably the main critic that can be listed against it. It reflects a somewhat bureaucratic tone of the document (and of the EU's actions towards Central Asia) that eludes the main debate - why is it important for the European Union to have a strategy for the afore-mentioned region. The bureaucratic argument would be that, if the EU has decided on a foreign policy aimed at the region (notwithstanding the real form it takes, strategic or rhetoric), then the EU must act on its own decisions and develop its initiatives. If the document does not live up to the standards of a strategy and if it's strategic outlook is more likely a formal overture to an important (but not vital) region, the underlying assumption would be that Central Asian matters are really not that high on the European agenda. At the same time, listing the same public policy proposals as reasons for a Central Asian policy underscores the fact that the present strategy has far outlived its usefulness.
Furthermore, another potential problem is the document's emphasis on a multilateral and pragmatic approach when considering the region. Pleading for the weighing of the greater regional interests of the EU (those concerning Russia, China and the Southern Asian region) raises the logical question of whether it would be better to have a more far-reaching and encompassing document that can tackle the larger interests at stake (for whom no official statement or European document has been issued yet). If cooperation and regional agreements are to be encouraged, but not at the price of the wider set of foreign relations, then maybe the strategy for Central Asia is not the best framework for tackling problems that involve several other international organizations and regional or international powers. In both cases, it is hard to envisage the "smaller" component working in the absence of the "larger" strategic and political Asian umbrella. In other words, the larger interests may well demonstrate the need for a larger Asian strategy and only a smaller Central Asian "tactic".
In the end however, there are two issues that EUCAM's final report does not convincingly manage to tackle - although the merits of the document cannot be disputed. On the one hand, the underlying assumption of the document - that meaningful cooperation at an European level can occur in the Central Asian case (which is a perfect laboratory for the testing of new European foreign policy initiatives and procedures) is still insufficiently explored and sustained. The authors elude an academic debate as to the nature of the European foreign policy that has yet to issue a definitive conclusion as to its future. Of course, a Central Asian strategy review is not the case and the proper venue to call for a better structured and more cohesive foreign policy of the European Union. Nevertheless, calls for a strategic coherence of a global European strategy pose very important questions as to the nature and scope of European foreign policy at a time when the integration process seems to be at a halt. Overcoming differences between member states and guiding European policy into a meaningful and effective position requires probably a more motivating context than the emergence of a multipolar world. The issue of multipolarity (which the authors try to address in the final chapter of the paper) may be a motivating perspective for the European Union. Central Asia doesn't seem to be however the catalyst that may move the EU into the position of a global actor. At the same time, even if the EU seems to discard the tragic realist narrative of a multipolar world (the reemergence of balance of power politics and misperception fuelled conflicts) in favor of a more "stable and enlightened" world based on multilateral effective international institutions, the authors are not compelling in making the case for Central Asia. Given the predicaments of the Central Asian strategy, one has to expect that the EU's normative ideals may be found or put to practice elsewhere.
The problem of EU sanctions is relevant for the matter at hand - not only did the EU countries disagree on the imposing and lifting of sanctions on Uzbekistan following the Andijan incidents, but their effect was politically inconclusive. The EU backed its way out of the problem by "making" Uzbekistan fulfill official standards (although on close inspection the progress was dismal). A debate on the role of EU sanctions brings us back to the larger problem of the European foreign policy and the old and self-obvious consideration that the EU is not (yet) a state only deepens the debate.
Secondly, observers have to notice that neither the strategy, nor its critics do address the main strengths of the European Union, its institutional and organizational experience. Furthermore, there are no present signs of functionalist tenets - the establishment of scientific or technical organizations that make border-divisions elusive and ineffectual due to the states' need of increasingly complex functions being managed - or of the neoliberal focus on functioning institutions.
Either from a functionalist or a neoliberal perspective, the Central Asian strategy has failed to build institutions or meaningful cooperation procedures that can change the political pictures in the region. Although the EU remains dedicated to the political stability of the region, its policy of timid encouragement of change-from-within is not guaranteed to develop institutions in highly personalized and authoritarian regimes that lack institutionalization. Economic development might be the foremost priority, but it cannot develop unless the five Central Asian states build institutions that can outlast the normal crises which states must endure (such as the death of the founding leaders). Authoritarianism might be the safe card in the present and the safest bet on short term - however it is very doubtful that Central Asian authoritarianism is self-sustaining.
All in all, EUCAM's report is an accurate and detailed account of the EU's Central Asia Strategy's flaws and strengths. Although the report puts a heavy emphasis on political transformations that are independent of the regional dynamic, it manages to set out a convincing set of public policy proposals (although the proposal seem in turn to justify the necessity of a more coherent Central Asian EU Strategy).
