Two years following the EU’s principled stance towards the Uzbek regime of President Islom Karimov, in response to its harsh suppression of the Andijon uprising, the strain in relations appears to be taking its toll on both sides. The Uzbek government has made tentative overtures to the EU, and there are indications that some in the EU are willing to accept such overtures at face value in the rush to normalise relations, often citing security and energy concerns, as well as ‘progress’ in the sphere of human rights.

Diplomatic and consular protection of EU citizens in third countries is one of the individual entitlements connected with the status of citizenship of the Union. Yet this right is not well known and criticism has emanated from the European Parliament that it is still at the theoretical stage. Recent events such as the tsunami in South-East Asia or the 2006 Lebanon crisis have highlighted the need to work together efficiently to assist and protect EU citizens abroad.

After 16 years of war, 12 years of failed diplomacy and 4 years of deadlock, the conflict in the Western Sahara is back to square one. Resumed direct negotiations, under UN auspices, between Morocco and the Polisario Front on the basis of the former’s recent proposal are doomed. Besides impeding meaningful cooperation and integration in the Maghreb - to the loss of the nations of the region and even the EU - this ‘forgotten’ conflict, with its 165,000 refugees in desert camps, can take a violent turn at any juncture, with far-reaching implications.

The international community has traditionally looked at Tajikistan through the lenses of conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction, but there is now a significant opportunity for the EU to develop closer ties with that country within the context of its broader efforts to forge a Strategy for the Central Asian region. In this paper by Matteo Fumagalli, Lecturer at University College Dublin, it is argued that it is now time to dispose of this outdated framework and to begin to deal with Tajikistan as a ‘normal country’.

The German Presidency has taken the initiative to launch a process of rethinking the involvement of the European Union in the five states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, with the intention of producing a new EU Strategy on Central Asia. This paper welcomes this initiative to strengthen the EU’s presence in the region as timely and sorely needed.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the US authorities decided to collect and retain data on individuals coming to the US by air as a measure intended to increase US security. This act, however, which came into force in May 2004, was found to provide inadequate protection of personal data, and the European Court of Justice required the formulation of a new agreement. In October 2006, the European Union and the United States entered into a new agreement regulating the exchange of passenger name records.

The context in which the EU’s biggest gas suppliers decided to formalise their cooperation is marked by tensions over energy supplies and politics. The Russian-Algerian rapprochement in the gas industry has been interpreted as a step – a big step – towards the cartelisation of the gas market with potentially damaging economic and geopolitical implications for the EU.

Globalisation is being blamed for the squeezing of the middle class and protectionism is being offered as a solution. This paper by Angel Ubide, Director of Global Economics at the Tudor Investment Corporation and an Associate CEPS Fellow, argues that the increase in inequality is a long-term trend resulting from a variety of factors, including the decline in manufacturing, the reduction in the progressivity of taxation and the steady increase in asset prices, and that globalisation has only had a marginal impact. Protectionism will not revert any of these trends.

Many experts and practitioners expected the 2004 enlargement to affect both the efficiency and content of policy-making in the EU. In contrast to these expectations, most accounts of decision-making in the Council of Ministers following May 2004 have concluded that the effect has been only moderate. The EU’s most important legislative body is commonly found to function relatively smoothly following the enlargement big bang in 2004. Yet many aspects of the enlargement of the EU institutions have still not been adequately reported or evaluated.

In light of the severe crisis afflicting the European Union and the low regard with which the Union’s institutions are held by public opinion, Stefano Micossi and Daniel Gros argue in this Policy Brief that three critical areas stand out in need of clarification and fresh initiative: the common framework for policy coordination, the budget and the democratic deficit in European institutions. The chances of success would be enhanced by tackling these issues in the right order.

Few would think that Russia has ‘soft power’ ambitions, in the sense that the term has come to be associated with the EU’s attempts to achieve change in its wider neighbourhood by means of attraction and incentives rather than through coercion. As revealed in this Policy Brief by CEPS Research Fellow Nicu Popescu, however, the truth is that Russia has begun in earnest to invest in the infrastructure of a soft power.

There is a tendency in some political discourse now to say that, because the Constitution that was meant to prepare for enlargement failed to be ratified, the enlargement process has now hit a roadblock called ‘absorption capacity’. An alternative narrative is that the Constitution proposed some useful but marginal systemic changes, but its ratification was badly mismanaged by some political leaders. In the meantime, the EU has not experienced gridlock, and its current major political issues have nothing to do with enlargement.

The indefinite prorogation of the WTO’s Doha trade talks in July suggests that the global appetite for multilateralism may now be seriously weakened. In this new Policy Brief, CEPS Senior Research Fellow David Kernohan and T. Huw Edwards of Loughborough University look at how a failed or significantly delayed Doha round (say till 2009 at the earliest) could affect the scope and structure of any eventual WTO deal. In particular, if a rise in regionalism in the interim is inevitable, they ask whether the EU should reassess its regional trade policy objectives?