Since the European Union (EU) launched its New Strategy on Central Asia in 2019, the EU has been striving to play a role of greater significance in the area. The EU is committed to forging a stronger security and economic partnership with Central Asian states whilst encouraging the region’s development into a more resilient, prosperous, and closely interconnected political and economic space.
In this January 2023 Newsletter the EIAS Team wishes you a splendid new year full of joy and fascinating discussions.
On 24 January 2023 EIAS Director Lin Goethals contributed to this online seminar organised by the Hanns Seidel Foundation Brussels Office, sharing her views on EU-Kazakhstan Relations, in particular on how the EU and Kazakhstan can increase their economic partnership and cooperation, connectivity and how the EU can increase its soft power and presence on the ground, while addressing and engaging Kazakhstan’s Youth and younger generations.
In November 2022, the European Union (EU) and the Republic of Korea (ROK/ Korea) set in motion their Digital Partnership. The initiative was largely anticipated by both partners and finally came to fruition after years of negotiation. The partnership sets a commonly accepted framework which aims “to collectively respond to the implications of emerging technologies on people, industry and society, and to develop and advance technologies, policies, and research cooperation”. How will the EU-Korea Digital Partnership be implemented and how will it address the ambitions it has put forward?
Before the 24th of February 2022, freight through the New Eurasian Land Bridge (NELB) or so-called ‘Northern Corridor’ —with Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine as its most critical components— showed great promise. However, the war in Ukraine and the related Western sanctions against Russia and Belarus have created significant shifts in global geo-economics and supply chains. This has heavily affected various sectors such as global energy markets, transportation, and logistics, alongside infrastructural connectivity initiatives.
On 14 December 2022, the “EU-ASEAN Commemorative Summit” took place in Brussels, celebrating 45 years of EU-ASEAN diplomatic relations. Alongside the Summit a number of other meetings were held, among which the “EU-ASEAN Business Summit” and the “EU-ASEAN Youth Summit”, both of which took place on 12 December 2022. Following the Summit, the EU and ASEAN are more committed than ever to actively promote enhanced engagement by strengthening their Strategic Partnership. They also agreed to expand their shared efforts on climate change mitigation, people-to-people connectivity and security in the Indo-Pacific.
Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is one of the most serious threats to marine ecosystems, undermining the national and regional efforts to conserve and manage fish stocks. With an estimated global value of IUU fishing between 10-20 billion EUR per year, one in every five fish is illegally caught from IUU fishing activities annually. Moreover, IUU fishing also comes with social and economic implications since it undermines the fairness of responsible fishermen and gives rise to forced labour and human trafficking.
In November 2022, Southeast Asia entered the centre of global attention as the region hosted an unprecedented group of major international summits: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Related Summits in Cambodia on 10-13 November, the Group of Twenty (G20) Leaders’ Summit in Indonesia on 15-16 November and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Thailand on 18-19 November. Yet, as the summit season gathered the world’s leaders to foster stronger international cooperation, the gatherings were dominated by soaring diplomatic tensions and the growing strategic polarisation, consequently putting Southeast Asia’s international leadership to the test.
From 6-18 November 2022 the ancient city of Egypt, Sharm el-Sheikh, was host to the Conference Of the Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC). The four principal goals of this year’s COP included 1) Mitigation – essentially implementing the Glasgow Pact; 2) Adaptation – how to adapt the strategies to stay at the forefront of climate action; 3) Finance – how and by whom should disaster-hit states be compensated; and 4) Collaboration between civil society and governments.