Firdavs Kobilov, participant of CABAR.asia-2021 School of Analytics, writes about the effectiveness of the EU soft power instruments in Uzbekistan over the past 5 years, as well as what changes have occurred in this area in an article, exclusively for CABAR.asia.
The European Union as a soft power actor efficiently used its Sui generis and attractiveness to spread its values and norms. The EU’s soft power success depends on its sources, mechanisms and instruments of its realization. But the factor of the country to which is directed also plays a vital role. The European Union’s soft power in Uzbekistan reached positive outcomes since that the reforms and changes such as economic liberalizations, building favourable business and investment climate for foreigners and locals, reconsidering judiciary, and reforms in education had started in 2016. This piece discusses the EU’s external policy instrument – “soft power”, and its success in the aforementioned areas over the past five years, and how the reforms and changes that occurred in Uzbekistan have provided positive conditions and opportunities for the promotion of the EU’s soft power policy.
The European Union as a unique global actor demonstrated its economic and political potential in spreading its core values, perceiving European principles by implementing the intrinsic instruments of external policy. The innate trait of the EU external policy caused many discussions among academic and professional communities on what kind of actor in International relations it is. The EU has been considered as a normative power in international relations due to its many individual features, such as the idea of “uniting sovereignty”, the importance of a transnational European Parliament and respect for human rights[1] or as a ‘civilian power’ or as a ‘soft power’[2]. The European Union’s role as a transformative power is another approach used for describing the policy toward the Eastern and Central European countries[3]. A comprehensive approach to the study of EU foreign policy is based on an analysis of the values, images and principles that shape the discourse and practice of EU relations with the rest of the world[4].
The European Union’s goal as an emerging united global actor is to increase its presence in the Central Asian region. A consequential step to achieving this goal triggered the accepting the New European Union’s Strategy for Central Asia in 2019. The implementation of the New strategy of the EU goes parallel with ongoing political and economic reforms and changes in Uzbekistan after coming to power President Sh. Mirziyoyev. Post-2016 reforms such as economic liberalization, improving a favourable business and investment climate, overhauling the judiciary, improving working conditions, government accountability and efficiency provided several positive results. They have increased Uzbekistan’s attractiveness in the global arena and the interest of external actors like the European Union for further enhanced cooperation. Particularly, the bilateral cooperation between the two sides propped notably up in the economic and cultural aspects.
There are many instruments of soft power such as education, culture, language, and economic prosperity that could be used in foreign policy to promote national interests. However, this article mainly focuses on the European GSP+ scheme and education, and consider them among the principal soft power instruments of the EU’s external action in Uzbekistan. This piece discusses the EU’s external instrument soft power and its success in the aforementioned areas over the past five years, and how the reforms and changes that occurred in Uzbekistan have provided positive conditions for the promotion of the EU’s soft power policy. Hence, the main argument of this article is that the effectiveness of EU soft power depends not only on the capabilities of the EU foreign policy, its instruments and implementation mechanism but also on the opportunities and appropriate conditions provided in the country to which the soft power was directed.
Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) as an instrument of soft power
The ability of the European Union to promote its values and norms by its soft power plays a significant role in its external policy. As one of the biggest single markets in the world with more than 447 million consumers[5], the EU is the most coveted destination for exporting Uzbekistan´s national products, and today is the 4th most important trading partner for Uzbekistan. Total trade with the EU amounted to € 2,6 billion in 2019; however, these numbers experienced a slight decrease in 2020 with € 2,4 billion. These trade relations have marked sea changes since the EU approved Uzbekistan to the Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP +), which provides for preferential tariffs on goods imported from Uzbekistan under this agreement from April 10, 2021. Consequently, Uzbekistan will be benefited by exporting its goods to the European Union and entering the global market more smoothly within this program. It will boost the economic and trade relations between the two sides and will strengthen the EU presence not only in Uzbekistan but also in the region. Among the Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan firstly benefitted from the European Union’s GSP+ scheme in 2016 that is expected to boost the local economy due to the opportunity of exporting to Europe.
However, if we consider Kyrgyzstan’s experience during the last five years, we can see that it has not produced valuable outcomes for Kyrgyz exporters. Consequently, the amount of the annual export from Kyrgyzstan is in the last place among 9 other participants of the GSP+ system. According to G. Chekirova, there are several reasons for that among which are first, Kyrgyz exports mainly consisted of gold, which does not fall within GSP+, and secondly, mostly agri-food goods little value and interest[6]. Another barrier to Kyrgyzstan exporters is the high European standards for importing goods to the EU. Thus, to achieve maximum benefit from free export to the EU, Uzbekistan could learn a valuable lesson from Kyrgyzstan practice and plan strategy of the actions to improve its export potential in the European market.
These positive developments in bilateral relations between the EU and Uzbekistan have not come alone. The acceptance of Uzbekistan to GSP+ implied the positive changes and reforms in many areas led by the President and the ratification of several conventions that are the main criteria for being a member of it. Thus, Uzbekistan went through significant changes and reforms during the past several years and one of the positive outcomes was accepted to the GSP+ system.
Tempus and ERASMUS influence on higher education in Uzbekistan
The cooperation in cultural and educational spheres is one of the main areas of the New Strategy, and the Council will support reforms for the improvement of the education systems in Uzbekistan. The prioritized directions are reforms in higher education, vocational education, and training, exchange programmes of staff and students, and digital education as well[7]. The cultural and educational partnership will promote citizens mobility and strengthen links between the two regions. This type of partnership will be mutually beneficial in economic and social terms and will enrich the teachers, professors and students’ academic backgrounds with international experience that they can use in their daily routine.
For the higher education system of Uzbekistan, 2017-2020 has become a period of indigenous transformations and making important decisions to improve the quality of higher education, which has multiplied the relevance and important role of an intensively developing international cooperation. In 2019, President Sh. Mirziyoyev signed the “On approval of the concept of higher education system development of the Republic of Uzbekistan until 2030”[8] that put the aims to reform and develop higher education based on national and world standards. This document is a milestone step to improve and develop the national educational system. One of the objectives of this concept is to reach that at least 10 higher education institutions in the country to list in the first 1,000 places in the ranking of internationally recognized organizations (Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, Times Higher Education or Academic Ranking of World Universities), including the inclusion of the National University of Uzbekistan and Samarkand State University in the list of higher education institutions for the first 500 places.
Here learning and implementing world-leading universities experience, particularly, the European model is an opportunity for the EU soft power to spread and promote in Uzbekistan its so-called education export product (Jones, 2010, p. 42). The role of the Erasmus + program, which today involves a total of 65 universities in Uzbekistan, played a crucially important role model in the ongoing reforms and changes, the key options for cooperation with universities, as well as the implementation of the European experience in the field of higher education. The ERASMUS as a soft power for almost thirty years provides educational cooperation between the EU and other regions. The EU uses the Erasmus+ programme to help Uzbekistan universities to modernise and meet the targets of the Bologna process on higher education and Torino principles on vocational education and training. The aim is to strengthen the competitive environment among universities, to create a qualified teaching method and mechanisms, which help build a modern and highly standardized system[9]. Kazakhstan’s experience, which is a full member of the Bologna process since 2011, demonstrated positive effects in reforming and developing tertiary education in the country. For instance, today Kazakhstan 10 universities are in the top best 1000 universities according to QS World University Rankings-2020[10], and while three of them are in the top 500, and one is in the top 300. Hence, we can conclude that the overall Bologna process’s impact is positive.
Among the most desired destinations to study postgraduate studies is the EU, after the USA and UK. Here The ERASMUS+ play’s programme provides excellent opportunities for students studying in the EU, to experience the European educational system, and to increase citizens’ mobility. The diagram below demonstrates that how the number of students from Uzbekistan going to study Master’s degree in Europe changed during the last 7 years. We can see that each of the numbers experienced a gradual growth with a few fluctuations. In 2020, the number of students showed a slight decrease and we could consider it as a spillover effect and consequence of the COVID-19.
Table 1: ERASMUS MUNDUS (EMJMD) Masters selected students from Uzbekistan (2014-2020)
Prepared by the author using the data: ERASMUS in Uzbekistan, 2020
Another soft power instrument of the EU in the tertiary education sector is the Tempus programme funded by the European Union. This programme encourages the modernisation of tertiary education in the Partner Countries in Eastern Europe, including Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean, mainly boosting and strengthening university cooperation projects. In the framework of Tempus IV, the European Commission approved the budget with a bilateral allocation of 5 million EUR for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of Uzbekistan within 11 projects with the involvement of Uzbek HEIs were selected out of 77 project proposals in 2013 (in comparison to 36 applications in 2012)[11]. Furthermore, 47 Uzbek higher education institutions took participated in the distinctive projects. However, during the last years, these numbers grew significantly, without any doubt, we can point out that the reforms in the education system played a crucially important role in this.
Today, there are 114 higher education institutions in the country, of which 93 are local and 27 are foreign and their affiliates (quantity of the Russian, UK, USA, Singapore, and Indian). In particular, 6 new higher education institutions, 17 branches and 14 branches of foreign higher education institutions have been established in the last 3 years. Only two of them are the European Union member states’ universities such as Turin Polytechnic University in Tashkent (Italy), and Collegium Humanum – Warsaw Management University Andijan branch (Poland).
Also, despite Europe being one of the desired destinations for postgraduate studies, European languages are among the most learning foreign languages. The language is an instrument of spreading culture, traditions and values, plays a vital role in promoting soft power. There are special language centres in Uzbekistan, where the Uzbek youths learn European languages such as German, French and Spanish. Striking examples are Goethe-Institut and French Alliance in Tashkent, where people learn the German and French languages. At some public universities and institutions specialized in foreign languages, and at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy students learn among other languages, the European ones as a first and second foreign language.
The EU soft power is not limited only to the aforementioned areas. Cultural relations between the EU and Uzbekistan are also enhancing year by year, promoting an informal platform for bilateral constructive dialogue. For instance, in 2013, with the participation of the National Agency “Uzbek Kino”, the EU started to organize the “European Film Festival” in Tashkent annually. The geographic dimension of this cultural event expanded to other regions of Uzbekistan from 2016. The unprecedented strength of the soft power could be found in the cultural measure and the cinema and songs are the most attractive among them. Therefore, these festivals might play a vital foreign policy tool in spreading European values and norms among youngsters by visualization and audio forms. There is as well the European Union Management Training Programme that realized its educative courses for Uzbek senior managers in European countries till 2018. These courses aimed to develop and improve the organizational skills of the local entrepreneurs and build a favourable business culture in the workplaces.
The positive impacts of reforms in Uzbekistan on the EU soft power
The main argument of this article is that the effectiveness of EU soft power depends not only on the capabilities of the EU foreign policy, its instruments and implementation mechanism but also on the opportunities provided in the country to which the soft power was directed. For instance, among the students who got ERASMUS MUNDUS scholarship in Central Asia, the lowest indicators are in Turkmenistan. And it is not because of the European Union’s policy, or nor do students want to study in Europe, however, this is due to Turkmenistan internal policy and the absence of opportunities for the EU soft power realization in this country. Coming with the grips that the soft power instrument of the EU’s external policy demands rational purpose and appropriate conditions for the realization of its policy in countries to which it is directed.
Thus, a deep comprehension of the EU soft power demands the understanding of the soft power sources, mechanisms and instruments of its realization. However, one should be borne in mind that the successful promotion of its soft power depends on not only these factors but also certain conditions in the country to which it is directed. EU soft power has thrived in Uzbekistan and has attained its apogee last five years due to positive reforms and changes that occurred during these years.
Notwithstanding, there are several recommendations for further increasing the efficacy of the EU’s soft power:
- to create a simplified visa system for Uzbek entrepreneurs, tourists and students;
- to encourage the EU member states to establish more partnerships and open branches of their universities in Uzbekistan, as well as develop language training in the region;
- to provide trainee quotes in European institutions for Central Asian candidates, particular for Uzbek youths and professionals.
Conclusion
The European Union as a soft power actor efficiently used its Sui generis and attractiveness to spread its values and norms. The EU’s soft power success depends on its sources, mechanisms and instruments of its realization. But the factor of the country to which is directed also plays a vital role. The European Union’s soft power in Uzbekistan reached positive outcomes since that the reforms and changes such as economic liberalizations, building favourable business and investment climate for foreigners and locals, reconsidering judiciary, and reforms in education had started. These reforms provided favourable conditions and opportunities for the EU’s soft power realization.
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Duchêne, F., & Kinhide, M. (n.d.). The Crisis of International Cooperation-The Trilateral Commission (1974).
European Commission. (2019). Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council “The EU and Central Asia : New Opportunities for a Stronger Partnership.”
Hough, P. (2019). Understanding Global Security. In Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling (2nd ed., Vol. 53, Issue 9). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
Jones, W. J. (2010). European Union Soft Power: Cultural Diplomacy & Higher Education in Southeast Asia. Silpakorn University International Journal, 9–10(2009–10), 41–70.
Kaunert, C., & Zwolski, K. (2014). The EU as a global security actor: a comprehensive analysis beyond CFSP and JHA. Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 15(4), 620–621. https://doi.org/10.1080/15705854.2014.940129
Krzaklewska, E., & Krupnik, S. (2008). The Role of the Erasmus Programme in Enhancing Intercultural Dialogue. Presentation of the Results from the Erasmus Student Network Survey 2007. 4th International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education, Vol 6. https://core.ac.uk/reader/41781688
Tocci, N. (n.d.). Profiling normative foreign policy: the European Union and its global partners.
Union, C. of the E. (2017). Council Conclusions on the New Strategy on Central Asia Delegations. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 110(9), 1689–1699.
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List of websites:
- https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Population_and_population_change_statistics;
- https://gsphub.eu/country-info/Uzbekistan;
- http://www.erasmusplus.uz/Information-about-the-projects/tempus/Tempus-4/index.htm;
- https://www.universityrankings.ch/results/QS/2020?ranking=QS&year=2020®ion=&q=Kazakhstan;
- https://lex.uz/ru/docs/-4545884;
[1] Kaunert, C., & Zwolski, K. (2014). The EU as a global security actor: a comprehensive analysis beyond CFSP and JHA. Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 15(4), 620–621. https://doi.org/10.1080/15705854.2014.940129; Tocci, N. (n.d.). Profiling normative foreign policy: the European Union and its global partners; Voloshin, G. (2014). The European Union’s Normative Power in Central Asia: Promoting Values and Defending Interests. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137443946.0001
[2] Duchêne, F., & Kinhide, M. (n.d.). The Crisis of International Cooperation-The Trilateral Commission (1974).
[3] Hough, P. (2019). Understanding Global Security. In Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling (2nd ed., Vol. 53, Issue 9). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
[4] Costello, P. (2020). Values and interests in post-Lisbon European Union foreign policy. European Union in International Affairs, 45–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48317-3_4
[5]See: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Population_and_population_change_statistics
[6]G. Chekirova. 2019. The European market remains a dream for Kyrgyz exporters, EUCAM Commentary No. 32 https://eucentralasia.eu/the-european-market-remains-a-dream-for-kyrgyz-exporters/
[7] Union, C. of the E. (2017). Council Conclusions on the New Strategy on Central Asia Delegations. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 110(9), 1689–1699.
[8] See: https://lex.uz/ru/docs/-4545884
[9] European Commission. (2019). Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council “The EU and Central Asia : New Opportunities for a Stronger Partnership.”
[10] See: https://www.universityrankings.ch/results/QS/2020?ranking=QS&year=2020®ion=&q=Kazakhstan
[11] See: http://www.erasmusplus.uz/Information-about-the-projects/tempus/Tempus-4/index.htm