The EU’s principled diplomatic stand in the wake of the Andijon events continues to show just how ineffective principled stands in foreign policy can be, even if they do teeth. The EU recently decided to lift visa restrictions against Uzbek officials.
Speaking ahead of the meeting, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the ban would be lifted for six months and that the move was conditional on the absence of new human rights violations in the country.
Don’t put any money on the ban being reinstated in six months. The decision to lift the ban came despit no visible human rights progress and after the Uzbek government told the EU that it can take its human rights concerns and Andijon discussions and kindly go stuff them.
The decision to lift the ban is being called a victory for the German approach to relations with Tashkent. Now I think that engagement is all well and good, but it’s very important in diplomacy to show that one is capable of doing more than just rolling over in submission. In this particular case, it seems pretty clear that there’s not much room for engagement to do much good; Karimov is pretty set on blocking avenues for criticizing his government or undermining his power. That the EU even gives this much attention and consideration to Uzbekistan is undermining the Union’s ability to get Tashkent to budge because it makes Uzbekistan out to be far more important than it is to the EU. They’d be far better served by paying Uzbekistan less attention and forcing it to make some moves for relations to develop.
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