Routledge The European Union and Central Asia (Routledge Advances in Central Asian Studies)

In June 2007, the Council of the European Union (EU) adopted The EU in Central Asia: Strategy for a New Partnership, highlighting the growing importance of Central Asia to the EU. This book examines the EU's policy towards the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in light of this Strategy. The analysis focuses on the EU's Central Asia Strategy and provides an evaluation of the EU's performance in meeting its policy goals in the region. It starts by looking at the EU as an actor, and discusses the general framework of EU-Central Asia cooperation. The book goes on to focus on the Strategy's general strategic directions and, in particular, its set of concrete policy commitments and questions whether these are adequately designed and implemented so they are able to contribute to regional security and stability. The book contributes to a better understanding for the pitfalls of overall stability in Central Asia, as well as studies on European Union and International relations. Review "The publication can be considered a significant contribution to the discussion on the issue of the European Union and Central Asia. It also provides us with a significant amount of important information on the efficiency of the European Union's strategies, and not only in this region. The publication brings a very useful and competent analysis of the Strategy after three years." - Peter Plenta, Department of Political Science, Comenius University in Bratislava; International Issues & Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs, Vol. XX, No. 3 | 2011 About the Author Alexander Warkotsch is an Associate Researcher at Würzburg University, Germany. He was a DAAD research fellow at the University of Western Australia and a Lecturer in European Studies at King’s College London, UK. He has published widely on European politics in Central Asia.