The Central Use Relationship

New Geopolitical Challenges

Abstract

This article analyses how the European Union’s (EU) geopolitical shift, formalised by von der Leyen’s “Geopolitical Commission”, affects its relations with Central Asia. It questions whether this transformation has led to a genuine break in the EU’s traditional normative approach or whether it consists of a continuation of latter-day practices. We argue that the EU’s geopolitical interests
in Central Asia have been present since the early 2000s, being based on the pursuit of security and energy interests, as well as on the containment of regional rivals, particularly Russia and China. On the assumption that the dichotomy between liberal values and geopolitics is largely a fallacy, we show that the new geopolitical approach represents, to a large extent, the explicit recognition
of growing international competition. The article points to two future challenges: the risk of the EU being drawn into balancing and bargaining quarrels among powers in the region and the need to calibrate interventionism in light of potential internal divisions in the Central Asian states.