Late last year the European Parliament has prepared a draft resolution on the EU Strategy in Central Asia, which was adopted last summer under the German presidency in European Union. The motion for a resolution has been discussed and went through the Foreign Affairs Committee and is now to be adopted in full. Although the overall mood of the document ia quite positive, the MEPs brought their attention to the lack of substantial issues in the strategy - for example, poverty eradication, social inclusion, and public health that are still a major problem in most countries in Central Asia.

Earlier, the EU Strategy in Central Asia was criticized both withing the region and by the Western observers for the lack of democratic component - being mostly focused on security and energy cooperation. The MEPs also addressed this issue and emphasised that EU aid and cooperation must build on concrete benchmarks for each country developed in the framework of the future dialogues on human rights and democracy. The International Trade Committee in its Opinion called on the Council of EU to explain how it intends apply the Human Rights and Democracy Clause in relations with the Central Asian governments.

The draft resolution’s section, devoted to Kazakhstan, also features a number of interesting and highly critical parts.

In particular, the MEPs stressed that the last parliamentary elections, held on 18 August 2007,

“failed to meet OSCE standards and resulted in the fact that all the seats in the parliament were taken by the ruling pro-presidential party, leading to monopolisation of power on the part of President Nazarbayev and his supporters”.

The draftsmen call upon the Kazakh Government to abolish all disproportionate restrictions on the registration of new political parties, to comply with the rules of the OSCE and to fulfil its other international obligations, including in the fields of political pluralism, electoral law, transparency, media freedom and freedom of speech. Otherwise, according to the motion for a resolution,

“… if no progress towards meeting democratic standards is made, Kazakhstan cannot be regarded as ready to assume the presidency of the OSCE”.

Besides, the MEPs raised concerns over “the absence of any real freedom of the press, presidential control of all major media and the systematic prosecution of opposition journalists”. In an apparent call for a more balanced approach towards priorities of EU in Central Asia, the European Parliament members urge the Council and the Commission to prioritise support for the Government of Kazakhstan as well as its civil society with a view to consolidating the rule of law and to the further promotion of democratic elections in the future.