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comprise reducing illegal trafficking in drugs and small arms, improving se-
curity components in travel documents, strengthening border controls, and
countering terrorist financing and other terrorist activities. Another OSCE se-
curity priority in Central Asia has been humanizing police training, equip-
ment, and control.
3
As well preventing conflicts between or within member countries, the
OSCE has long required to resolve already existing conflicts. For instance, the
institution attempted to help end the 1992-97 civil war in Tajikistan, though
it finally took Russian military intervention to secure the peace agreement.
Since then, the OSCE has required to resolve the so-called-frozen conflicts in
the former Soviet Union, as well as those in Georgia, Moldova, and between
Armenia and Azerbaijan. Its progress in these cases has been minimal. 
The Russian and Central Asian governments have tended to see the OSCE
as extremely preoccupied with democracy and human rights rather than with
attractive member’s security and economic development. Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) allowed a statement criticizing the OSCE for inter-
fering in the internal affairs of member states, employing a double standard
that excessively focuses on abuses in CIS countries, and becoming overly pre-
occupied with human rights issues at the expense of managing new chal-
lenges and promoting member’s security and economic well-being. The
declaration also castigated the ODIHR and the OSCE field operations for over-
spending, making unwarranted criticisms of member’s domestic political
practices, and pursuing their own reform agendas. 
The EU Central Asia Strategy
As the EU has become a more evident geopolitical actor, it has sought to
improve its ability to respond to and prevent deadly conflict. The European
Union is not living up to its potential as a geopolitical actor in Central Asia.
The level of EU interest has been low, and Brussels is doing little to shape de-
velopments in a region that has mostly seen marked declines in its economic
fortunes, political freedoms and social development in recent years but re-
mains of extensive strategic significance. If this is to change, Europe must
move away from largely ineffective policies, particularly the promotion of re-
gion-wide projects, and take on a more focused and active role geared to the
separate characteristics of each of the region’s five states. It needs also to raise
the level of its representation, spend more money and stick to its political
ideals if it is to have a positive impact.
Ensuring respect for human rights is of critical importance to the goals
of the Central Asia strategy articulated by the German presidency and of the
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EU’s January 2007 Joint Discussion Paper on the Strategy for Central Asia
(“the EU draft strategy”). The EU draft strategy states that the EU’s overall
aim is “The establishment of stable, independent and prosperous countries
adhering to democratic values and market economy principles in Central
Asia.” It prioritizes supporting security and stability, escalation energy secu-
rity, and enhancing trade and investment. 
Since the January 2006 Ukraine-Russia gas dispute, energy security has
risen to the top of the European policy agenda, with officials in Brussels and
member-state capitals scrambling to decrease over-reliance on Russia. Too
late, the EU has begun to realise Central Asia’s potential importance. Its oil
and gas reserves, which could be linked directly to Europe via the South Cau-
casus and Turkey, are seen as at least a limited solution to the need to diver-
sify energy contribute.
4
Raising human rights at the political level and establishing goals and
benchmarks in human rights do not, as some in the EU have recommended,
set back the EU’s relationships with Central Asian governments with no con-
sequence.  In the case of Turkmenistan, for example, even in the absence of an
interim trade agreement with the EU, contact and appointment with the EU
continued at many levels. Particularly, several of the reform promises made
by the new Turkmen president directly addresses EU parliament human
rights benchmarks for incoming into an interim trade agreement with Turk-
menistan. 
EU assistance to the region has largely taken the form of technical assis-
tance implemented through the program (TACIS) that was designed in 1991
to support transition to market economies and support democracy and the
rule of law in the post-Soviet space. That program has included a number of
large trans-national projects in transport, drugs, border controls and energy
which show few consequences for the time and money invested. Even with
some assistance given to combating drug trafficking, the potential for ill-got-
ten gains from the drug trade continues to weaken efforts.
Following the Soviet collapse in 1991, EU relations with the newly inde-
pendent states (NIS) were basically conducted along the lines of the Trade
and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) signed two years earlier with Moscow. In
1991, the EU also launched the Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of
Independent States (TACIS) program, modelled on its assistance program for
Central and Eastern Europe.
5
TACIS was planned to “promote the transition
to a market economy and to reinforce democracy and the rule of law in the
partner States”. From 1991 to 2002, the five Central Asian states got some
€366 million in TACIS assistance.
6
As part of the reform of the entire EU de-
velopment assistance system, TACIS programming ends in 2006. On the other
hand, given the time-lag in implementing the yearly Action Programs for each
country, TACIS-funded projects can be projected to run through 2011.
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