Italy’s Charm Offensive Targets Central Asia

Prime Minister Meloni visits Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan looking for deals.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveled to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan at the end of May, accelerating talks of cooperation and striking deals around a range of industrial sectors and diplomatic issues.

One of Meloni’s milestones was her participation in Italy’s version of the C5+1 dialogue format, an approach that several countries have already undertaken toward the Central Asian region. In Astana, Meloni met with government leaders from all five Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – to discuss enhanced cooperation, in terms of trade and security.

The parties placed a strong emphasis on regional stability, which was enhanced by recent diplomatic triumphs, such as the resolution of the border dispute between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in March.

The summit followed April’s European Union-Central Asia summit in Samarkand, which was also the theater of Meloni’s visit to Uzbekistan on May 28-29.

When meeting President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Meloni said she is “happy with the concrete nature of the [bilateral] work,” which she pledged to turn into a regular platform for cooperation.

In particular, her visit to Uzbekistan focused on the fight against transnational threats, such as terrorism and violent extremism, but also drug trafficking and illegal migration.

During her bilateral visit to Kazakhstan on May 30, Meloni was hosted by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who congratulated her on her first visit to the country.

“We are proud to be Italy’s leading partner in Central Asia. Our economic cooperation is growing dynamically and holds vast potential for further expansion,” Tokayev said.

Meloni indirectly responded, focusing ever more on energy cooperation.

“If we really want to shape the future, we must have the courage to look beyond our geographical boundaries and pave new paths. I am thinking of the energy sector,” Meloni said.

Italy is Kazakhstan’s third-largest trade partner, behind China and Russia. The goal is to strengthen that position, in an effort to trailblaze EU cooperation in Kazakhstan and in the wider region.

This was the first visit to Kazakhstan by an Italian head of government in more than a decade. Tokayev had visited Meloni in Italy in January 2024.

Days ahead of her visit, during a joint business forum, Kazakh Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov focused on the surprising 25 percent increase in trade turnover with Italy, which reached $20 billion last year.

During a public meeting with Meloni, Tokayev said that the countries plan to increase trade by at least $1 billion this year.

Leaving aside that a 5 percent increase could feel underwhelming compared to a 25 percent increase the year before, the locomotive of Kazakhstan-Italy trade is Kazakh oil exports, which amounted to $18.7 billion in 2024. Non-oil trade only amounted to around $1.3 billion.

Tokayev included “oil” in his speech about increasing trade volumes, effectively saying that because Kazakhstan plans to produce more oil, some of the extra barrels will be shipped to Italy.

Interestingly, trade statistics between Italy and Kazakhstan have been a bone of contention. In fact, most of the oil that Kazakhstan exports to Italy reaches the Port of Trieste and is then pumped via the Trans-Alpine Pipeline to refineries in Austria, Czechia, and Germany – the real importers of Kazakh crude volumes that are mistakenly attributed to Italy, as their own official statistics show.

A former diplomat described this double accounting as “a constructive ambiguity that has run for decades.”

The “constructive” part could be crumbling now, as Kazakhstan’s government is battling, among others, Italy’s oil company Eni, which is a major shareholder in two of Kazakhstan’s largest oil productio