Check against delivery! 

Good morning to everybody, 

Excellencies, Ministers, Ladies and Gentlemen, 

It is for me a great pleasure to be here today to welcome our partners from Central Asia to Brussels and to this important Forum.  So many people attending - it shows the importance of this meeting. 

You know that we are living in turbulent times. I am not going to insist on the economic dimension, but on the geopolitical moment, in which we are living. The least we can say is that both the European Union and Central Asia have been – and still are – in a turbulent moment.  

We navigated through the global challenge of the COVID-19, which looks like centuries ago, but it was not so far away. And when [we were] just going out of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic turbulences that it created, we became confronted to new and old crises in our neighbourhood - in our neighbourhood from one side of the geography and in your neighbourhood from the other side. 

First, we saw the rapid collapse of the situation in Afghanistan in 2021. This brought new challenges to us all, and in particular to our partners in Central Asia, which are the direct neighbours of Afghanistan. I remember being in a conference some days before Kabul collapsed, discussing with the then President of Afghanistan [Ashraf Ghani who was] warning us that this was going to happen – and it happened. And since then, you have a great challenge at your borders. 

Then came February 2022, and we have been confronted with Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.  

And later, if it was not enough, the war in Gaza and the threats of wider escalation in the Middle East that continue posing strong challenges to the international community and to both regions.  

Russia’s war against Ukraine has been a stark reminder of the critical importance of jointly defending the core principles of the United Nations. It is our best way of ensuring peace and security in the world. The sovereignty and independence, and territorial integrity of any country should be indisputable. And we must avoid going back to a world where “might makes right” and where powerful countries can change borders unilaterally.  

You know that in order to defend these principles, the European Union has imposed substantial sanctions against Russia, which have significantly weakened its war machine. But still, they are there, and the war continues. And if I can say it, the intensity of the fighting increases and we do not see the light at the end of the tunnel. And in order for these sanctions to be effective, we need full cooperation from our partners. We are following closely the trade between us, between Central Asia countries, with them and Russia. We try to analyse which are the mechanisms that make sanctions being circumvented. We have to increase our cooperation on that. Because we need closer partnerships to address global challenges – and closer partnerships are the key objective of Global Gateway. Yes, we have to build infrastructures. Yes, we have to increase the connectivity of our space. But all that is at the service of a political purpose, which is [to] increase our partnership and to share a better future by increasing economic ties and also, defending the same values. 

In this very much complicated geopolitical environment, Central Asia has become a crucial partner for us. I used to say that four years ago, when I came to Brussels, Central Asia was a little bit in the middle of nowhere – and now, you are in the middle of everything. You are the cornerstone between Europe and Asia. Everything that matters between Europe and Asia goes through you. And that is why, our partnership is so much important for us. 

And beyond that, you have a vibrant history and cultures at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. And I still would remind of the first travellers coming from Europe, hundreds of years ago, trying to discover what was [there] and coming back full of admiration for the beauty and impressive architectural heritage that you have, and you keep. 

Notably in terms of security and connectivity, energy and resource diversification, we have to strengthen our partnership in a way towards increasing our respective economic security. These two words – economic and security – will go close together. More and more, when we talk about economics, we will have to look at the security dimension. And when we talk about security, we will have to look at that through the eyes of economics.  

So far, during my mandate, I had the opportunity to travel to the region three times. To deepen our cooperation, in 2021, I visited Tashkent for the Central and South Asia Regional Connectivity Conference, and Dushanbe for the EU-Central Asia Ministerial meeting. Then, in 2022, I co-hosted the EU-Central Asia Global Gateway Connectivity Conference in Samarkand. 

Last October, for the first time the ministers of the 27 European Union Member States met with the five Central Asian Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg - some of you were there - demonstrating our commitment to the region. 

At that meeting in Luxembourg last October, we endorsed an ambitious Joint Roadmap for Deepening ties between the European Union and Central Asia. We want to do that in mutually beneficial areas including reforms, economy and trade, connectivity, green energy, security, and people-to-people contacts. In the end, you will not build a true partnership if you do not make people-to-people be in touch. It is not enough [to have] governments, officials [meeting]. It is not enough [to have] agreements signed by high-level personalities, we need people-to-people [contacts] to know better each other. And this meeting is one of the 80 concrete actions that we defined in this Roadmap, and now we are implementing. 

The next step will be the first region-to-region Summit later this year, that will be kindly hosted by Uzbekistan. The first region-to-region Summit - I think it is going to be another important step in our relationship.  

Excellencies, we talk a lot about borders today. Borders are being violated. Borders are the frontline of confrontation. But borders are also the scars left by history on the skin of the Earth. History has been carved by borders in the skin of the Earth, sometimes by fire and fighting. 

We need to overcome borders. We need to go above the borders in order to get in touch with the people on the other side. We need to make borders transparent. They will exist, but we will not see them. That is what is happening here in the European Union. 

Yes, certainly in Europe, borders have been the scars of history, but today you can go from Gibraltar to Helsinki, crossing many borders without seeing them. You don’t have to stop. Nobody asks: “who are you? Where are you going? Open your suitcase. Show your papers” - and this is extraordinary. 

Borders continue being there, but you do not see them. Travels, exchanges are much more easy to do and much more beneficial. This is something that the whole world can do – make the borders transparent in order to let people, goods and services go from one country to another as easily as possible.   

We have to invest much more in physical connections between Europe and Central Asia to allow us to overcome past dependencies, to diversify and find new alternatives for transport, for energy and for supply chains. It will breathe new life into the ancient Silk Road, linking up [also] with our partners in Turkey and South Caucasus. This is our challenge. That is why we are here: to look for the financial resources that can make it a reality. Changing the skin of a region, linking with the borders of other regions [such as] Turkey, South Caucasus, Europe, on the road to China. 

This is a challenge [for which] both Europe and Central Asia need to strengthen our resilience and diversify our political and economic relationships. I want to insist on this sentence: diversify our political and economic relationships. 

I am sure this Forum will be an important step in this direction. That is why, I thank you a lot for being here.  

Thank you. 

Link to the video (starting as of 09:00) : https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-252129