"Europeans recoiled in horror at the mass killing of hundreds of unarmed protesters in Andijan, Uzbekistan, on the orders of the authoritarian government of President Islam Karimov in May 2005. The European Union imposed sanctions, including a visa ban and an arms embargo, and demanded an independent inquiry. But six years is a long time in politics. Memories fade, attention shifts elsewhere.
All the same, the feting in Brussels this week of the defiantly unrepentant Karimov, a serial rights abuser, represented a disturbing EU volte-face and an undeserved success for the Uzbek dictator. The sanctions, which never had much effect, were quietly dropped in 2009. An independent inquiry was never held. Nobody was held to account for the murders. Instead, hard-nosed EU and Nato interest in maintaining supply routes to Afghanistan, and in Uzbek energy reserves, now takes precedence.
José Manuel Barroso, the commission president, defended his meeting with Karimov, saying he had pressed his visitor hard on human rights and political prisoners during talks that focused primarily on security and energy.
The Karimov embarrassment, while grave, is a familiar one for Brussels. Similar contradictions in EU policy, and those of its members, have recently become apparent in the cases of Belarus, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China and Hungary.
The problem is clear. The EU must decide whether it is first and foremost a champion of universal values and human rights, which Barroso claims stand "at the heart" of its foreign policy – or if its collective strategic security, political, economic and commercial interests are paramount and will primarily dictate its foreign policy actions. Either the EU believes in its founding principles, and takes strong political and legal action to uphold them, or it does not. It cannot have it both ways."
For more: Why does the EU give credibility to such dictators as Islam Karimov? | Simon Tisdall | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
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