Brussels Energy Club contributes to EU-Central Asia Summit Preparation meeting

On 19 March 2025, Dr Marat Terterov, Principal Representative of the Brussels Energy Club contributed to a high-level panel on minerals and energy at the Tashkent Platform for Bridge Building between the EU and Central Asia.

This high-level international event was jointly organised by the International Institute for Central Asia and the European Neighbourhood Council. This well-organised meeting provided a platform for European and Central Asian experts to brainstorm about key areas of engagement between the countries of the EU and the five Central Asian republics.

Recommendations produced during the event were intended to provide a policy foundation for discussions due to take place at the EU-Central Asia forum in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in early April 2025.

Further to his intervention during the Tashkent Platform, Dr Terterov provided the following recommendations for top-level decision-makers at the EU-Central Asia Samarkand Summit:

• Central Asian decision-makers want more engagement with the EU. Both sides need to identify what ‘engagement’ actually means and what form of engagement they are looking for. Ideally, they need to speak about engagement with one voice and with a common language.

• EU decision makers need to take into account both the commonality as well as the diversity of Central Asia. While it is understandable that Central Asia may come under the compass of EU external policy regionalism, appreciating the diversity of the region will further strengthen the European understanding of Central Asia at a policy level.

• While the EU remains one of the world’s major economic powerhouses, the upcoming Summit in Samarkand comes at a time when the EU and Central Asia are increasingly becoming equal partners. Messages reflecting this position should be incorporated into the Summit Communique.

• In this context, the EU should assist Central Asia in taking ownership of its economic integration process. The EU has much to offer Central Asia as a benchmark for regional economic integration, including both the positive and challenging experiences this has created for the EU and its member states.

• The EU should celebrate the fact that the Central Asian countries are focusing on rapid economic development and on peaceful relations with their neighbours at a time when geopolitical cataclysms prevail across Eurasia.

• The EU should likewise acknowledge the fact that Central Asian countries exercise multi-vectoral foreign economic policies and endorse investment partnerships with multiple regions/countries of the world.

• In terms of consolidating upon a durable and long lasting economic partnership, the EU and Central Asia should look at ways of strengthening existing trade and investment patterns, whilst likewise opening up news ones. EU-Central Asian trade turnover is increasing. This trend should be strengthened further and made irreversible.

• The EU should push less on having Central Asia achieve carbon neutrality and rather work together to meet national decarbonization targets within the framework of national programs as well as international agreements.