The European Union's Influence in Central Asia by Spaiser Olga Alinda;

Author:Spaiser, Olga Alinda;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Russia as the Most Important Foreign Partner

Numerous opinion polls in Central Asia reveal that Russia is considered to be the most important foreign actor in the region. For instance, an opinion poll conducted in Kyrgyzstan revealed that 96 percent of respondents viewed Russia to be the “most important partner” for their country (IRI 2012, 40).[24] In addition, the poll asked which political option Kyrgyzstan should consider in the future and, remarkably, almost two-third responded “Join Russia.” This response ranked second after the option that Kyrgyzstan “should be [an] independent, neutral state” (ibid., 45). The nostalgia of the Soviet Union also seems to remain at a high level because 56 percent of the respondents would like “the return of the USSR” (ibid., 47). Regarding the integration within Moscow-led multilateral frameworks, the approval rates in opinion polls are the highest in Central Asia compared to the whole CIS region. Despite the abovementioned concerns and problems Astana has been facing since its entry into the Eurasian Economic Union, the Eurasian barometer has shown that 84 percent of the Kazakhstani still approve their country’s membership (EDB 2014, 7). Concerning nonmember states (as to 2013), the highest approval of integration within the EEU was registered in Tajikistan (72 percent) and even more surprisingly in Uzbekistan (68 percent), where the government has been strongly averse to economic integration with Russia (ibid.). In Central Asia between 81 percent (Kyrgyzstan) and 86 percent (Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) of the respondents considered Russia “a friendly country” to their states (ibid., 17). In Tajikistan, various surveys conducted in the past decade have shown that the majority trusts Russia more than any other external actor (Dubovitsky, cit. in The Elliott School of International Affairs 2012, 2). This is remarkable because Tajikistan is the farthest away and least Russified Central Asian republic that, moreover, hosts the smallest Russian diaspora of the whole region.

Indeed, trust is an important factor in the relations with Russia. Despite being the former colonizer, Russia remains the main reference for business and university networks, intellectual ties, or as an alternative job market. A high official at the Foreign Ministry in Kyrgyzstan described the relationship as that “between two brothers: you wrangle, you can be annoyed of each other, but you are also very close.”[25] The former president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akayev, even said during a speech at Harvard University that “Russia was given to us by God and history” (cit. in Beshimov 2004).

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