ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was tight-lipped on the details of the migration deal that his country finalized with Uzbekistan on September 15.
The agreement allows the "necessary immigration of highly talented workers that we need in Germany," Scholz said after talks with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev.
At the same time, simple, “unbureaucratic” procedures were agreed to "so that those who have to go back must go back,” Scholz added in comments made in Samarkand and published on his office’s website.
The last part of those comments may have had a domestic audience in mind.
Germany is one of many Western countries where migration -- illegal migration in particular -- is a hot-button issue being tapped into by the political right.
But it is also one of the few areas in which Western countries can, in the short term, honor their pledge to deepen ties with Central Asia -- a region whose strategic stock has gone up since Russia launched its full-scale war in Ukraine.
In Berlin’s case, “the German government finds itself in a bind,” said Yan Matusevich, a researcher and journalist focused on Eurasian migration.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev (right) and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at their meeting in Samarkand.
“It is trying to appease anti-immigrant sentiment among the population with the recent electoral successes of the far right while addressing the dire labor shortages that are hampering the German economy. As a result, you get these agreements that are designed to display harshness against irregular migrants, but provide opportunities for skilled migrants and students,” Matusevich told RFE/RL.
Labor Schemes Grow, Numbers Low
The traditional migration destination for Central Asians leaving job-light economies has been Russia, where millions of nationals from the region reside.
But a rarely easy life for migrants from major labor-senders Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan has hit new levels of difficulty because of the war, after military recruiters began targeting both naturalized and nonnaturalized Central Asians for the front lines.
Since March and the deadly Crocus City Hall attack in which nationals of Tajikistan were implicated, difficult has become impossible for many, thanks to a massive increase in raids on migrants at their workplaces and homes, with more and more Central Asians also being turned back at Russia’s borders.
All three of those countries have attempted to engage Moscow over this alarming new normal, only to receive the reply that Russia’s approach to migration policy is now very much security-first.
And that means a very real window of opportunity for the West to court those Central Asian countries, for whom remittances equate to anywhere between 10 percent of gross domestic product (Uzbekistan) to over 40 percent (Tajikistan).
But results so far are modest and are likely to remain so, according to experts.
In the United Kingdom, where anti-immigration sentiment spilled into riots last month, the Seasonal Workers Scheme attracts thousands from Central Asia every year.
Demand for the scheme is high across the region, a fact that has given rise to scams and predatory behavior on the part of agencies advertising the placements.
A detained illegal migrant from Central Asia fills out forms at a police station in Russia's Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk before her deportation. (file photo)
But while migrants can often earn two or three times in Britain compared to what they can get in Russia, the overall remittance value of migration between Central Asia and the United Kingdom is still lower than destinations with longer-established migration ties to the region such as South Korea.
In Germany’s case, too, the numbers are small.
A September 15 report on the agreement by the Hamburg-based weekly Die Zeit pointed out that there are currently just 13,700 Uzbeks living in the country.
Meanwhile, “only around 200 Uzbeks are in Germany without a residence permit...less than 0.1 percent of all 225,000 migrants in Germany who are required to leave the country,” Die Zeit reported.
Neither Berlin nor Tashkent have offered insight as to how those numbers will change.
But the agreement is “in line with similar agreements with other countries,” including Kenya, Morocco, and Georgia, according to Beate Eschment, a researcher at the Berlin-based Center for East European and International Studies (ZOIS).
“The debate about migration here is completely muddled and irrational at the moment and, unfortunately, the government's policy seems to be the same. It is not communicated enough that we need workers and that they can only come from abroad,” Eschment told RFE/RL. She added that she fears Uzbeks arriving in Germany “will experience hostility toward foreigners,” given the current environment.
Migrants wait to register at a migration center in Sakharovo, a village about 60 kilometers (35 miles) south of Moscow in 2015.
In September 2023, Germany and Kyrgyzstan signed a declaration of intent for a migration agreement, which is expected to occur in the near future.
The official phrasing was almost identical to Scholz’s regarding the sealed deal with Uzbekistan, detailing an aim “to open pathways for skilled workers to Germany and obligate Kyrgyzstan to readmit its nationals who have no right to stay in Germany.”
It is expected that agriculture, home-care nursing, and construction will be the priority sectors that the prescreened Uzbek placements will target.
Afghan Question And 'Disappointment' For Central Asia
For the moment then, a big migration boost for Central Asian countries from Europe looks unlikely.
But media reports in Germany have suggested that Uzbekistan may have a trump card in negotiations on the topic, amid ongoing talks on cooperation over the controversial deportation of Afghans back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
Scholz gave a circumspect response to a media question about progress in those negotiations while he was in Uzbekistan, citing only "confidential discussions about cooperation in many areas."
But in the wake of a deadly knife attack in the western town of Solingen, Berlin announced last month that it had begun deportations of Afghan nationals for the first time since the Taliban’s 2021 takeover.
The first such flight saw 28 Afghan nationals with criminal records in Germany sent back home as part of a deal mediated by Qatar.
Migrant workers outside the Unified Migration Center of the Moscow Region in Putilkovo in May 2021.
“Germany doesn’t want to have anything to do with the Taliban and that is where Uzbekistan comes in handy,” Temur Umarov, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin told RFE/RL, noting Tashkent’s cooperative relationship with the group.
Scholz was in Uzbekistan ahead of a visit to Kazakhstan where he held talks with the leaders of the five Central Asian countries on September 17.
That followed up Germany's first ever “5+1” talks with the region in Berlin this time last year -- part of a flurry of diplomatic activity that the region enjoyed in the second year of the war in Ukraine as Western governments seek to secure deals for natural resources and enforce compliance on sanctions against Russia.
But while interest in Central Asia from Germany and Europe as a whole has “risen significantly,” the five may have felt “disappointment” with the lack of actual progress in their respective relations with Berlin since then, argues Stefan Meister, a Central Asia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
“If you talk to Uzbek or Kazakh officials, you can understand that they had high expectations after the meeting with Scholz last year,” said Meister. "They hoped that Central Asia would be a priority for Scholz and that Germany would start investing significantly more in the region.”
And, although Germany is seeking resources to replace a once-heavy dependence on Russia, fresh investments into the authoritarian and corruption-prone region haven’t flowed thick and fast, Meister said in an interview with RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service.
“After the memoranda and statements, there was no significant action from Germany, at least not to the extent that they had hoped for,” he said.