Aerial view of the Kashagan offshore oil field in the Caspian Sea, western Kazakhstan, on July 22, 2026. There is room to develop trans-Caspian energy pipelines to strengthen European energy independence, write Kaush Arha and Fred Starr. (Shutterstock/Arafatmyt)

Why Central Asia’s Middle Corridor Needs Trans-Caspian Pipelines 

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The dream of the “Trump Route” in the Caucasus will remain unfulfilled without further connectivity to Central Asia.

One of Europe’s most promising strategic energy opportunities lies in its own neighborhood. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are rich in the resources Europe needs, but lack the capacity to get them to market. Together, they are Europe’s most underinvested energy asset. 

Brussels is beginning to grasp this. At the first EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand in April 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Central Asia “the very definition of a global gateway, the beating heart of Eurasia.” She then announced a €12 billion ($13.8 billion) Global Gateway investment package for a variety of infrastructure, critical minerals, energy, digital connectivity, and water projects. That moment marked a potential turning point, but the architecture is yet to be built. Recognition is not a strategy. Pledges are not pipelines. The Caspian-Black Sea corridor will not become a pillar of European resilience until Washington and Brussels treat it as a single strategic challenge, not a sequence of bilateral files. Now the window is open. The next step is past........

© The National Interest