Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-19-Speech-2-353"
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"en.20080219.32.2-353"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Özdemir, we too regard Central Asia as a region of growing importance and I entirely agree with you that it forms a bridge between Europe and Asia, has great strategic importance and is indeed a neighbour of neighbours, when you think of the Caucasus. In fact, as you said, the Central Asian countries are now members of the OSCE and as such also wish for close ties with Europe. It is important that we continue to support that. We want to satisfy that wish and we worked together really well with the German Presidency. We as the Commission submitted proposals that were then accepted by everybody. As a result we have a new and most important Central Asia strategy.
I am glad that the European Parliament and Mr Özdemir have taken up precisely that question with this sound report. It is indeed most important to make progress with implementing this strategy in the future.
Of course we must always remember that although the European Union has been active in those countries since their independence, we have now received a kind of new impetus and are devoting more attention to them. I therefore very much welcome the clear statement in the report that the European Parliament encourages Member States to ratify the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Tajikistan in particular. I hope the same will also happen in the case of Turkmenistan, where a broader contractual framework would also allow more intensive support for the framework conditions and reforms.
As you know, we have been providing bilateral technical aid for many years in the framework of the reform process, as also humanitarian aid. So we are not starting from scratch. There is, however, enormous potential for developing our relations further. That is why we set out quite clearly in the new strategy what objectives we want to achieve through this closer involvement: genuine support for reforms in the field of human rights, democracy, support for economic development, investment support, protection of the environment, environmental sustainability, development of energy and transport links, as also measures to tackle common challenges such as drugs trafficking.
This strategy is also flanked by the European Union’s strategy of regional aid for Central Asia. That supports our political aims and also makes major contributions to achieving the millennium development goals, especially in the areas of poverty reduction and health.
I believe it is most important to make progress in specific areas such as human rights, but also in education, in the rule of law, in important regional projects in West and Central Asia, in the water industry, in expanding the EIB’s mandate. You rightly referred to the dialogue on energy policy and to the fact that an agreement should be concluded with Turkmenistan on cooperation in the field of energy. In that respect both Kazakhstan as also Turkmenistan are of course especially important to us.
In this connection, let me briefly point out that the EU House, the EU information centre, will open in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat in spring, which will make our measures much more visible there. I hope I will be able to open it myself. Finally, preparations for setting up a delegation in Uzbekistan and for upgrading the delegations in Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic are also going according to plan.
Let me conclude briefly with the latest news about the current energy and food crisis in Tajikistan. My colleague Louis Michel is in the process of looking into the ECHO proposal to allocate EUR 750 000 for a range of urgent aid measures, and I hope that proposal will be approved in the near future.
I could certainly go on for much longer, but my speaking time is limited like everyone else’s."@en1
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