On the 14th of June I visited in Berlin a panel discussion of the German Association for Eastern European Studies about the Central Asia strategy of the European Union. Members of the panel were Dr. Manja Hussner, a DAAD teacher from Tashkent, Dr Maksat Kachkeev, a Kirghiz lawyer from
Cologne, and Dr. Jenniver Sehring, „Mrs. Water“ from Wuerzburg. Moderator was Dr. Beate Eschment an editor of the German Central-Asia-Newsletter.

When you are in Central Asia, it always looks like that there are not many Germans around, but Dr. Eschment quoted Gernot Erler that, the Central Asia Strategy is “our child”. Gernot Erler is secretary of state in German Foreign Ministry and one director of the German-Kazakh Association. Dr. Kachkeev, who holds a scholarship of a German university, gave a brief instruction of the law reforms, which are part of the strategy. In late 2008 the EU will start a Human Rights Dialog with Kazakhstan. When he said this, I remembered, how everybody in Iran was frustrated about the dialog there, when I worked in Tehran 2007. I don’t think this will be more as a cover-up for the inactivity of the EU. Further topics will be the reform of the commercial law and the court system, therefore Dr. Kachkeev made it clear what this strategy is all about: Kazakh oil and how to get back the money we paid for this oil. Especially since there will be no mediation-clauses in the future subsoil-contracts of the Kazakh government.