Diversifying trade exchanges away from Russia and China and boosting diplomatic ties will be the main items on the agenda at the first-ever EU-Central Asia summit later this week with human rights issues and Russia sanctions circumvention likely to be relegated to the footnote.
The European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, will travel to Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Thursday, hoping to deepen energy and critical raw materials partnerships with the resource-rich region. The leaders of the Central Asian bloc, which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, will meanwhile hope to secure investments in their industries and infrastructure.
