Nicolas de Pedro, EUCAM expert from Madrid, interviews Luis Felipe Fernández de la Peña, Director General for Europe and North America from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation to discuss the importance of Central Asia for the Spanish EU presidency. What role does Central Asia play in Spain's foreign policy? Will Central Asia be among one of the multiple priorities of the Spanish EU presidency for the next six months of 2010?

Regional cooperation in the sphere of energy among the five Central Asian states is a challenging task. Intra-regional tensions over water distribution and hydropower sector development, lack of harmonized legislative bases, and asymmetry in the natural resource assets and market economy development are some of the obstacles to regional cooperation on energy that inhibit investments in Central Asia. Mr. Rainer Behnke, Team Leader of the Project on Development of Coordinated National Energy Policies in Central Asia within the INOGATE framework talks about the challenges they had to face and creative approaches they developed to make a progress.