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As China further embarks on implementing its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and remains firmly set on pursuing the ambitious goal of connecting China overland with Europe, the European Union (EU) and Russia - as indispensable stakeholders for this continental connection to successfully materialize – have been developing policy responses to China's initiative that reveal an unexpected willingness to cooperate. In scrutinizing the likelihood of cooperation on connectivity between the EU, China, and Russia in Central Asia, this chapter identifies the common interests between the three sides, and highlights to what extent cooperation between them is possible in Central Asia. In doing so, the chapter points to the main opportunities while outlining the main bottlenecks, which mostly stem from the underlying geopolitical rivalry between these three actors, as well as their diverging beliefs and approaches to connectivity and development.

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The new stage of EU – Armenia relations, open by the signing of CEPA, focuses on the search for new models of integrations that would make compatible the obligations in the EAEU framework with the wish for closer ties with the EU. While for Brussels this step is a symbol of revised eastern politics, for Erevan it underlines the country’s aspirations for multivectorness within existing structural constraints. The analysis provided in this article suggests that the current consensus launches a new model of a ‘silent’ compatibility of existing integration projects on the post-soviet space, when in the context of political crisis between the integration centers the de facto adaptation of opposing vectors is driven by the focused countries. The model is loose enough to be widely used, and it has an ambivalent potential of postponed influence on the multilateral relations on the post-soviet space.