On 25 September 2017, the Energy Charter Secretariat organised the second coordination meeting on the EU strategy for Central Asia. The meeting was attended by the Ambassadors of Central Asia and representatives of the European Union, including the European External Action Service and DG Energy.
The participants of the meeting supported the initiative of the Secretariat to contribute to the consultation process initiated by the European Union to revise the priorities of the EU Strategy for Central Asia. The representatives of the Embassies of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan reconfirmed their interest in enhancing energy cooperation with the European Union. They stressed the importance of trilateral cooperation of the EU, Central Asia and the Secretariat. Countries consider the International Energy Charter as a useful platform for cooperation with the EU and its Member States. The Secretariat could serve in future as an implementing agency for the technical assistance, similar to the EU4Energy project for Eastern Neighbourhood.
The Secretariat proposed to the EU and Central Asian countries to reflect on this issue in the agenda of the High-level Ministerial Meeting on EU-Central Asia cooperation to be hosted by Uzbekistan in Samarkand in November 2017.
