This EUCAM Watch is devoted to NATO and Central Asia. An insight into NATO's activities in the region is provided by NATO Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, James Apparthurai. Alexander Cooley writes about the Northern Distribution Network and the U.S. plans for the New Silk Road, while Marlène Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse discuss NATO in connection to the Russian driven CSTO and the Russia-China led SCO.

EUCAM is devoting increasing attention to bilateral relations between European countries and the region. In this issue of EUCAM Newsletter, we focus on Finland’s presence in Central Asia, making use of a series of meetings held in Helsinki at the end of October. Our first interview is with Finland’s International Development Minister, Heidi Hautala, who places Finland’s role in Central Asia in broader Finnish development policies. The second interview is with Finland’s Ambassador to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, Tuula Yrjölä, who offers an insight into the development of diplomatic ties between Helsinki and Central Asia. In addition, this issue includes an overview of the main outcomes of the EUCAM events held in the Finnish Parliament at the end October and the German Bundestag in November.

This EUCAM Watch focuses on the cotton industry of Uzbekistan. It is now a high season for cotton harvest in the country. Therefore, for this issue we interviewed Joanna Ewart-James of Anti-Slavery International and Miriam Saage-Maas of the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) to share their views on forced child labour in Uzbekistan. EUCAM researchers Marléne Laruelle and Sébastien Peyrouse write about broader agricultural difficulties in Uzbekistan and our programme manager Tika Tsertsvadze looks into the EU Generalised System of Preferences in relation to Uzbekistan

This EUCAM Watch focuses on the EU's policies through the Strategy that has its fourth anniversary coming up next month. Two interviews stand central: one with EU Special Representative for Central Asia Pierre Morel and the other with International Crisis Group Vice-president (Europe) Alain Délétroz. Next to this we present our latest publication and notifications of Europe-Central Asia news and external publications. Lastly our new Advocacy Officer Tika Tsertsvadze introduces herself; an exercise we plan to continue in future newsletters so to bring the work of our new EUCAM experts and partners to your attention.

2010 promises to be an interesting year for relations between Europe and Central Asia. The EU, guided by the Spanish Presidency, plans to initiate a review of the Strategy for Central Asia and is likely to build further on the political foundations that have been laid over the last two years. The OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe) welcomes Kazakhstan as its first Central Asian chair and hopes that Astana can construct bridges between the 'eastern' and 'western' members that have been at odds over the last few years resulting in a weakened organisation. In this issue of EUCAM Watch, expectations attached to the Spanish and Kazakh chairmanships stand central: Nicolas de Pedro conducts an interview on the Spanish Presidency with Luis Felipe Fernández de la Peña, of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Cooperation; EUCAM expert Nargis Kassenova writes about expectations of the Kazakh OSCE Chairmanship and CEPS expert Piotr Kaczyńsky shares his views on the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on EU-Central Asian relations.

This EUCAM Watch attempts to broaden the discussion on regionalism in Central Asia. The editorial concludes that the EU should make an addition to its conception of the multiple regional dimensions of its foreign policy, which already has the Eastern Partnership, Northern Dimension, Union of the Mediterranean, Black Sea Synergy and now the Central Asia Strategy. An overarching EurAsian dimension is missing. The introverted regionalism of the Central Asian strategy might be allocated a more modest role, with the major issues finding their place in an extroverted regionalism that could be framed within a EurAsian strategy. After our extensive mission in Central Asia, in this newsletter we gathered stories from the region, ranging from impressions from the hydroelectric travels to primary education, to cotton fields, etc. We conclude our newsletter with important EU and Central Asia related documents, such as press releases and join statements.

This EUCAM Watch devotes special attention to the EU and cooperation with civil society in Central Asia. EUCAM organised a seminar on this topic in Almaty on 27 June 2009 with Central Asian NGO representatives and EUCAM experts. A report of this meeting is included here as well as that of another civil society meeting that the European Commission delegation to Kazakhstan organised a few days later, which dealt specifically with juridicial reform. Alongside the report you will find two commentaries: the first by Bauke Snoep, who works as a consultant for the Dutch Centre for European Security Studies and writes about Security Sector Governance and the role the EU might play in assisting Cetnral Asian republics to engage in meaningful defence, police and border control reform. The second is written by Adil Nurmakov, the head of the Competitiveness Research Centre in Kazakhstan, where he informs us about the amendments to the legislation regulating internet and online contents in Kazakhstan. This bulletin also updates readers on EU-Central Asia relations and the work related to the EUCAM project.

This EUCAM Watch devotes special attention to the energy question, including the water-hydroelectric tensions that prevail in Central Asia. Much of the material is based on a high-level roundtable and subsequent seminar that EUCAM organised in Prague in April, 2009. Vaclav Hubinger of the Czech Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs gives an insight to the EU Presidency; the work accomplished and the energy priority it has set. EUCAM Expert Michael Denison explains the state-of-affairs of energy relations with Turkmenistan. Also we offer a comment by OSI expert Jacqueline Hale on revision of EU Assistance documents and an interview with Rainer Behnke, Team leader of the project: Development of Co-ordinated National Energy Policies in Central Asia within the INOGATE framework. Additionally, this bulletin is meant to update readers on EU-Central Asia relations and the work related to the EUCAM project.

The European Union approved its first Central Asia strategy document in June 2007 for the period 2007-2013. From the EU's perspective, the Central Asia Strategy (CAS) rounded out the strategic approach towards its Eastern neighbours, which includes its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), its Eastern Partnership (EaP) and its bilateral relationship with Russia enshrined in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which is currently subject to negotiation for a successor agreement. The CAS represents significant progress in focusing explicit attention on Central Asia as a region of significance for Europe, and in spelling out the key objectives and instrumentalities. While representing progress in the EU's thinking about and approach to Central Asia, the CAS suffers from a serious weakness by presenting Central Asia in effect as the end of the eastern horizon of the EU. It makes no mention of the important bridging role that Central Asia has between Asia and Europe. It does not once mention the role of China, let alone India, and even does not even address how the EU will relate to Russia in implementing the strategy. Why does this matter?

Every member state that chairs the EU Council must strike a balance between the policies it wants to develop and the immediate crises that need to be dealt with. Czechs have already been confronted with two major EU foreign policy matters from the outset: the Israeli Gaza strip offensive and the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute. The Czech team may well end up continually dealing with one crisis after another instead of pushing ahead with further European integration, increasing the effectiveness of the Brussels institutions and developing foreign and energy policies. This is bad news for the EU's relations with Central Asia, especially since the Czech programme does not mention Central Asia as a key interest, understandably, since the programme is already ambitious as it is.

Following the launch of the EU Strategy for Central Asia in 2007, relations with the of the region have at last been acknowledged as a priority for Brussels and an integral part of the Union's eastern policies. Its adoption has been seen as the 'final piece' in the jigsaw of EU policies toward the former states of the Soviet Union: the European Neighbourhood Policy, the Black Sea Synergy, the Baku Initiative, the Eastern Partnership (currently under development) and now the Strategy for Central Asia. Together, this complex of policy initiatives marks a strong commitment to strengthening the role of the EU in Eurasia at a time of growing political and economic uncertainty and when the importance of the countries of the region is increasing, both for energy and security reasons.