The EU’s embargo on certain military-related goods and an official visa ban imposed on twelve members of the Uzbek government and military has already shown its limits.

First, Uzbek interior minister, Col. Gen. Zakirdzhon Almatov is currently in Germany, undergoing cancer treatment (I can’t find a single German source on that). The EU’s response:

European Union officials said Germany had granted the visa in accordance with a European Union practice that allows travel ban exceptions for medical emergencies and other urgent needs.

Well, as Brian, a reader of the Registan remarks, it won’t prove too difficult to forge a doctor’s note saying that Uzbekistan’s elite needs European medical treatment. Does that mean the visa ban is already rendered completely ineffective?

With regards to the embargo on military equipment, a relatively old DW article can tell us quite a lot:

According to the article, there were only three incidents of EU-Uzbek military assistance:
a) 20 German shephards for combatting drug trafficking
b) Ten years ago, France installed night-vision equipment on 10 Uzbek helicopters
c) Five Uzbek snipers were trained at a German military academy

That’s it, says DW. However, one should add that, apparently, UK-manufactured Land Rovers were used by the Uzbek security forces in Andijon and Uzbek troops received advice from the Royal Regiment of Wales back in 2004.

Another point from the DW-article mentioned above lies in the economic hemisphere. Since 1992, the EU lent out $150 million to Uzbekistan in cheap loans (that makes around $12 million a year) and cancelled these in the wake of Andijon. China seems a little more generous - its Eximbank recently lent Uzbekistan $300 million under very favourable terms.

On a final note regarding Mr. Almatov’s cancer treatment; maybe the Uzbek government will take a closer look at Ashgabad, where Turkmenistan’s President Niyazov built a huge private clinic, simply importing the German doctors (who don’t seem to enjoy Germany anyway).