Brussels, 30/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The cooperation and strengthened partnership agreement between the EU and Kazakhstan will be implemented on a provisional basis from 1 May onwards, announced the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, in a tweet, and the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had been meeting the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in Brussels.
Pointing out that the agreement had been signed in December 2015 (see EUROPE 11459) and his country has already ratified it, Nazarbayev asked Juncker to take action to get the ratification process speeded up in all EU nations. The EU is Kazakhstan's leading trading partner, ahead of Russia and China, and accounts for 51.4% of Kazakhstan's foreign trade and 50% of foreign capital in the country's economy. Kazakhstan is the third largest of the EU's energy suppliers among non-OPEC countries. Juncker pointed out that economic relations between the EU and Kazakhstan were strong and took many forms.
At a press conference, the Kazakh president called for visa-free travel for Kazakh passport-holders travelling to the EU (visa-free travel already exists for EU passport-holders travelling to Kazakhstan). He called for a lifting of the ban on Kazakh airlines from operating in the EU (the only airline allowed to operate is Air Astana).
Juncker and Nazarbayev discussed the human rights situation in the country. Juncker said he had raised problems arising with human rights and due to the strict application of rules of law adopted by Kazakhstan. He said he would not be more coercive in this respect than with other foreign visitors as he knew and felt than the president was sensitive to these problems, notably for relations between the Kazakh authorities and foreign non-governmental organisations. Nazarbayev thanked Juncker for welcoming his re-election the previous year, adding that international observers said that the elections respected democratic principles. After the presidential elections in April 2015, however (see EUROPE 11304), and also after the general elections in March 2016 (see EUROPE 11517), the EU said that a lot remained to be done to make the elections democratic. The two presidents also discussed reforms introduced in Kazakhstan.
The two presidents discussed regional issues and Juncker said he had great hopes for Kazakhstan's peaceful strength in what he described as the “complex” region of central Asia. Nazarbayev returned to the question of EU sanctions against Russia in connection with the Ukrainian conflict, which have had an impact on his own country. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)