10
Opening statement
of the EU Special
Representative for
Central Asia,
Ambassador Peter Burian
I am pleased to be in Tashkent today
and participate in the Joint Round Table
“Cooperation between Uzbekistan and the EU:
Vision for the Future”.
This seminar is part of a larger
consultation process to prepare a new EU -
Central Asia strategy.
It provides us an opportunity to receive
an important feedback from our Uzbek partners
and colleagues from different branches of the
government and civil society and evaluate our
past achievements over a quarter of century
and at the same time to define new areas and
opportunities for making our partnership even
stronger and more productive.
Through this large consultation process
we want to develop a new strategy for Central
Asia which would be fully aligned with our Global
Strategy and also which would better reflect new
realities in the region, ambitions, priorities and
needs of our partners.
In this respect I hope our discussion
today will generate many important suggestions
to this end.
Let me briefly present the EU’s
perspective on EU - Central Asia partnership,
including our cooperation with Uzbekistan.
At the outset I wish to underline that the
European Union has since the very beginning
welcomed and supported independence and
sovereignty of countries of Central Asia.
We applaud important progress our
partners in Central Asia, including Uzbekistan,
have achieved in building their new socio-
economic systems, creating legislative basis
and development programs and strategies for
sustainable development over last 25 years.
And in this regard I believe the EU has
plaid an important role as the biggest donor
in supporting sustainable development in
Central Asia, processes of transformation and
modernization in partner countries.
I dare to say that also thanks to this
contribution the region managed to preserve
a large degree of stability in a situation when
it was facing many formidable challenges
including security threats coming from
worsening security situation in Afghanistan,
economic downturn and growing impact of
climate change.
I am pleased to note that through these
25 years our partnership has matured and in
particular in recent two/three years acquired
a new content and dynamism also thanks to a
pro-active attitude of our partners to inter and
inter-regional cooperation.
We have clearly registered this new
spirit in Samarkand during our recent EU - CA
ministerial meeting - 13th in a row already, but
significantly new by its atmosphere and mutual
understanding.
In Samarkand the EU has reconfirmed
its readiness to further expand the cooperation
with the Central Asian countries focusing on
different aspects of sustainable development
and strengthening resilience of societies.
I am pleased to note that Uzbekistan in
this regard represents a key partner for the EU
in Central Asia for pursuing a comprehensive
approach to development and security, where
rule of law, respect for human rights, and
good governance play crucial role in creating
conditions conducive to economic prosperity
and stability.
I am pleased to note that during 26 years
since Uzbekistan gained its independence the
European Union has been a strong a reliable
partner for Uzbekistan in its processes of
transformation and modernization.
It has been a process accompanied with
many challenges both inherited from the former
Soviet Union such as aging infrastructure, years
of pollution and land degradation and wasteful
managements of natural resources leading
almost to disappearance of Aral Sea but also
new ones like building state institutions almost
from scratch and at the same time integrating
the country into a global system of trade and
economy.
I have to add that this has been happening
on the background of the protracted conflict in
Afghanistan with negative impact on security
and development of Central Asia region.
In spite of this mix of interconnected