EU and Central Asia Launch New Era of Strategic Partnership

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — The European Union and the countries of Central Asia have entered a new phase of strategic partnership aimed at expanding trade, attracting investment, and building sustainable infrastructure. That was the message from participants at a special panel session held during the Tashkent International Investment Forum.

EU Special Representative for Central Asia Eduards Stipraits recalled that 2025 marked a historic milestone — the first EU–Central Asia Summit, which elevated relations to the level of strategic partnership.

He noted that since then there has been steady growth in mutual interest, both from regional states seeking closer cooperation with the EU and from European member states.

Former Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, delivering the keynote address, called for a shift from declarations to concrete projects.

In her view, strategic partnership rests on three pillars: political trust, economic complementarity, and shared security interests. "Europe should not come to Central Asia to lecture. It should come with serious proposals, high standards, and a readiness to invest," she said.

The Central Asian region is showing strong economic growth. According to the EBRD, combined real GDP growth across the region's countries reached approximately 7% in 2025 — double the average across the bank's entire area of operations. A slowdown to around 6% is expected this year, though that remains well above the global average.

EBRD Director for Regional Policy and Strategy Dmitri Gvindadze said the bank's cumulative investment in Central Asia has reached nearly 23 billion euros, of which 30% has been directed to the private sector. In the past year alone, the EBRD invested around US$2 billion in the region, including approximately US$900 million in Uzbekistan.

European Investment Bank Vice President Marek Mora announced the opening of an EIB regional office in Tashkent and outlined the bank's investment plans: over the next two to three years, it intends to finance projects worth approximately 3 billion euros across the region, of which 1 billion euros will go to Uzbekistan. "Our role is not only to provide financing, but to ensure quality project preparation, mobilise private capital, and guarantee that investments meet high environmental, social, and governance standards," he said.

On energy, EDF Chief Executive Beatrice Buffon noted that the key challenge for Uzbekistan has already shifted from generation to the transmission and distribution of electricity. The French state company is involved in projects worth more than 2 billion euros in the country. Buffon also pointed to the prospect of creating an energy corridor across the Caspian Sea toward Azerbaijan, which could replicate the EU's experience with the Black Sea cable. EDF is promoting not only individual projects in regional markets but Uzbekistan itself as an entry point to the Central Asian market, whose combined population is approaching 100 million people.

OECD Senior Analyst and Head of the Sustainable Infrastructure in Asia Programme Pelin Atamer identified three systemic barriers slowing the delivery of infrastructure projects: insufficient institutional capacity for preparing bankable projects, misaligned incentives in the energy and transport sectors — including persistent fossil fuel subsidies — and regulatory obstacles to mobilising private financing.

She noted, however, that progress is visible: whereas Uzbekistan had no public-private partnership projects in 2018, by 2022 it had more than 400.

Serbia's Minister for International Economic Cooperation Nenad Popović drew on his country's own experience as an example of successfully balancing relationships with several major partners. He said Serbia's GDP has doubled over the past ten years to exceed 80 billion euros, while exports have grown to 30 billion euros. Serbia lies on the European branch of the Middle Corridor — the transport route linking China, Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus, and Turkey — and positions itself as a potential hub between Central Asian and EU markets.

Commerzbank Director for Central Asia and the Caucasus Ketevan Antidze drew attention to sanctions compliance risks. She said major European banks have tightened transaction screening procedures in light of potential sanctions circumvention risks relating to Russia and Belarus, and that managing these risks has become a key condition for operating successfully in the region.

Participants agreed that the main deficit is not financing but pipeline — the availability of ready-to-implement, financially viable projects.

Gvindadze, speaking for the EBRD, put it plainly: "Projects, projects, projects — that is what is needed," as multilateral development banks typically take minority equity stakes and seek to attract additional private capital alongside their own investment.