The European Council’s decision in December 2023 to open accession negotiations with Moldova and Ukraine as well as granting Georgia EU candidate status marked a new era for the EU’s Eastern policy. It put the final nail in the coffin of the Eastern Partnership (EaP), which was never designed to handle enlargement. The time is therefore ripe for a geopolitically more assertive EU to geographically reimagine and thematically widen its Eastern policy. Substituting the obsolete EaP for a new Trans-Caspian Partnership would fit this ticket for a number of reasons.
First, Brussels launched the EaP in 2009 to promote and intensify political association and deepening economic integration between the EU and Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, as well as the three South Caucasian states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Further east, the EU developed an entirely separate Strategy for Central Asia to steer its relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Since then, many things have changed. The EaP’s one-size-fits-all character did not stand the test of time. Only half of the countries — Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine — signed Association Agreements, including Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements with the EU. Belarus eventually suspended its participation in the EaP altogether, Armenia concluded its own custom-made Comprehensive and Enhanced partnership Agreement (CEPA) with the EU while Azerbaijan is still negotiating its own distinct bilateral framework. Meanwhile, an Enhanced Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (EPCA) between Kazakhstan and the EU entered into force in 2020. Kyrgyzstan has followed suit by signing an EPCA in June 2024 and Uzbekistan is next in line. As a result, these Central Asian states’ agreements with the EU are different in degree rather than in nature from the agreement that Armenia initialed.
Second, Central Asia and the South Caucasus are the key links in the east-west transport of energy and goods to Europe, the so-called Middle Corridor. Amid growing demands for non-Russian transport routes, a flurry of Trans-Caspian activities has taken place with the aim of enhancing the Middle Corridor’s efficiency. In January 2024, EU officials took their most powerful stance yet by announcing that European and international investors would commit to invest 10 billion euros in a development program for the Middle Corridor.
By establishing a Trans-Caspian partnership, the EU would be in a much-enhanced position to support the development of energy and trade infrastructure in the region. Overall, it is in Europe’s interest to promote regional connectivity to ensure that Central Asian states have options and do not become totally dependent on China and Russia for trade and investment.
Third, in the current era of geopolitical competition, Russia is linking up with China and Iran, forming an axis of revisionist states bent on overturning the principles, rules, and institutions of the post-Cold War international system. Unless this axis is countered, it might subjugate a great number of states in the process.
Meanwhile, a Turkic cooperation bloc — consisting of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan — is rapidly emerging in fields as diverse as security, trade, and culture. It is in the EU’s interest to encourage Turkey as a partial counterweight to the Beijing-Moscow-Teheran axis as well as to support and nurture the growing alignment of the Turkic world and tie this group of states, strategically located east and west of the Caspian Sea, closer to the European security architecture.
Fourth, the states in Central Asia and the South Caucasus have converged in their foreign policies. Albeit with different means, they all pursue “multi-vector” foreign policies as they strive for balance between various external powers.
They do not want to be made to choose sides in the ongoing geopolitical confrontation. But to offset unhealthy dependencies on a nationalistic Russia and a rising China, they want greater Western presence, not less. While they oppose some aspects of the post-Cold War international system and welcome a multipolar world, this term has a different meaning for these states, which are not anti-Western.
Fifth and finally, except for Azerbaijan, which has a defense pact with Turkey, the regional states lack real protections for their security. The EaP does not include a security component. Instead, the EU is crafting individual security partnerships, most notably a long-term security agreement with Ukraine, but also a new defense and security partnership with Moldova.
A new Trans-Caspian Partnership must feature security matters to help these countries defend themselves against various forms of malign foreign influences and interference. Moreover, to really harvest the fruits of Trans-Caspian cooperation, the EU should double down on its contributions to the peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A peace treaty would potentially lead to an entirely new dynamic in the Caspian region benefitting security and stability as well as trade and prosperity.
In essence, while the original EaP has been shattered to pieces, the hard line between the South Caucasus and Central Asia is now rapidly dissolving. A truly Trans-Caspian dynamic is emerging, and it is in the EU’s strategic interest to add impetus to this development. Establishing a Trans-Caspian Partnership would be the most effective and coherent way of doing so.
Johan Engvall, PhD, works at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS), based at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. His expertise is on domestic and foreign policy issues in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. His publications have appeared in several academic and policy journals, including Governance, Post-Soviet Affairs, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy and The National Interest.
