The Making of a European Union Strategy for Central Asia: Towards ‘Normalization’ in Foreign Policy?

Abstract

Is the European Union (EU) best seen as a ‘normal’ power in global politics and is the way the EU develops and implements foreign policy akin to other actors on the international stage? In this article we explore these issues in the context of EU-Central Asia relations and use the process of developing the EU strategy on Central Asia as a case. Grasping some of the mechanisms of what may be termed ‘normalization’ in EU foreign policy is of particular relevance in increasingly contested world regions such as Central Asia – Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan – where Chinese, European, Russian and US interests intersect, albeit in varying degrees. Drawing on a set of twenty-eight semistructured interviews conducted with members of the diplomatic service of the EU and its Member States in the capitals of Central Asian republics as well as in Brussels, we seek to gauge the scope of normalization at the stage of strategy formulation vis-à-vis this region. The article explores two internal dimensions which we distil from the concept of ‘normal power Europe’, namely hierarchical centralization of power and the pre-eminence of larger Member States in the making of EU foreign policy. The article challenges notions of the prominent role small states in European foreign policy making may assume. Exploring the development of the Central Asia Strategy, adopted in 2019, it finds first that the strategy-making process was highly centralized and led by the EU headquarters in Brussels; second that a set of larger EU Member States had considerable leverage in the strategy-making process in contrast to assumptions that small EU Member States could eventually punch above their weight. European External Action Service (EEAS), Central Asia, EU Strategy for Central Asia, small states, EU normal power