Jakarta (Antara News) - The European Union (EU) and the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) have been working closely to strengthen the ASEAN-EU Partnership and to
support ASEANs goal of building ASEAN Community by 2015 and beyond.
ASEAN and EU are both often seen as examples of two
successful regional groups. However, ASEAN and the EU have very different
historical backgrounds, development levels and perspectives as well as
approaches on political, economic and security issues.
Officials of ASEAN often stated that it would not
follow EU-style regional integration but is willing to learn from EUs long and
valuable experiences in developing the European Community particularly
regarding its integration and community building.
Since early 1950s, EU has been a pioneer in regional
integration and has long been the most developed model of regional integration.
Whereas, only in 2003, during the Ninth ASEAN Summit
in Bali, Indonesia, ASEAN Leaders resolved to establish an ASEAN Community
comprising three pillars: ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC), and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC).
EU is a developed international society that has
established common policies, institutions, and legal frameworks from which its
identity stems.
The 28 member nations of EU have frequently agreed to
pool part of their sovereignty and give it to the European Commission, whereas
the 10 member nations of ASEAN embark on regional cooperation in an effort to
protect and uphold sovereignty of members.
ASEAN remains strictly inter-governmental cooperation
and there is no indication of interest in sovereignty sharing among its
members.
"ASEAN Community is different from the European
Community. In ASEAN, we look for closer cooperation," Danny Lee, the
Director for Community Affairs Development of the ASEAN Secretariat, told 22
ASEAN journalists participating in a workshop on "Reporting on Regional
Integration and ASEAN" organized on December 13-14, 2013 by EU Center in
Singapore, and supported by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), and the Asian Media
Information and Communication Centre (AMIC).
Despite those differences, EU is one of ASEANs first
dialogue partners. In fact, EU is the only regional grouping that has become
ASEAN Dialog Partner, while the nine other ASEAN Dialog Partners are individual
countries - Australia, Canada, China, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea,
the United States and India.
Established in 1967, ASEAN groups Indonesia, Thailand,
Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Myanmar and Laos.
Founded in 1957, EU consists of Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and
the United Kingdom - with a total population of over 500 million.
Informal dialogue between ASEAN and EU was established
in 1972, which was primarily aimed at gaining access to European markets for
most ASEAN members exports.
Relationship between the two regional organizations
was elevated to a higher level with the first ASEAN-EC Ministerial Meeting
(AEMM) in 1978, which later became a regular meeting.
In March 2007, at the 16th ASEAN-European Ministerial
Meeting (AEMM) in Nuremberg, Germany, the foreign ministers agreed to pursue
enhanced partnership between the two blocs having a total population of over
1.1 billion.
In the area of economic cooperation, some activities
proposed include advancement of the ASEAN-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA)
negotiations. However, a regional ASEAN-EU FTA has to be halted for reasons
such as Myanmar human rights issue and development gaps in ASEAN.
EU later decided to negotiate bilateral FTAs with
individual ASEAN member states, starting with Singapore. The final negotiations
for FTA between Singapore and the EU were completed in December 2012, and both
parties initialled the text on 20 September. The EU is negotiating Free Trade
Agreements with Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.
The EU is now ASEANs second largest trading partner
and biggest source of foreign direct investment (FDI). ASEAN is the EUs sixth
largest external trade partner. ASEAN and EU are major trading partners with
206 billion Euros of trade in goods and services.
Southeast Asian companies are now also making forays
into Europe, according to Dr Yeo Lay Hwee, the director of EU Center in
Singapore, in her writing entitled "How Should ASEAN Engage the EU?
Reflection on ASEANs External Relations".
Trade and investments ties between the two regions
have grown tremendously over the past several years. Investments from ASEAN
into the EU have increased from 27.7 billion Euros in 2006 to 71.9 billion
Euros in 2010.
In the Bali Summit 2003, ASEAN Leaders signed a
declaration known as the Bali Concord II, which describes the ASEAN Economic
Community as a single market and production base to allow goods, services and
production factors such as capital, investment and labor to flow freely within
the region in order to achieve upper economic integration level and
institutional advancement.
ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) aims at deeper and
broader economic integration between ASEAN member countries.
Having a population of around 600 million people,
ASEAN is an attractive market for EU. Therefore, EU is interested in seeing
ASEAN as more dynamic and competitive by establishing a single market and
production base and promoting deeper regional integration.
EU is one of ASEANs major financial donors as ASEANs
budget is very limited and it has to rely on some of its dialog partners to
implement several activities.
During the 19th ASEAN-EU Ministerial Meeting (AEMM)
held in Brunei Darussalam in April 2012, the two regional groupings agreed on a
Plan of Action to Strengthen the ASEAN-EU Enhanced Partnership for 2013-2017.
In the Plan of Action, EU is committed to supporting
ASEANs goals of regional integration and community building, including enhanced
ASEAN connectivity to underpin the ASEAN Community.
EU has established a four-year Regional EU-ASEAN
Dialogue Instrument or READI, and ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the EU
or ARISE, according to Stefan Hell, the Team Leader of the Regional EU-ASEAN
Dialogue Instrument, in the workshop.
ARISE (2013-2016) is aimed at supporting the
implementation of key regional integration initiatives prioritized in the
Master Plan for ASEAN Connectivity to build the ASEAN single market and
production base. It also helps strengthen the capacity building of the Jakarta-based
ASEAN Secretariat.
Meanwhile, the objective of READI (2011-2015) is to
support ASEAN integration through the support of the ASEAN community blue
prints, drawing on European experience and know how through sectoral policy
dialogue and knowledge development.
Four dialogue sectors have already been identified for
READI support, namely Information and Communication Technology, Energy, Science
and Technology, and Disaster Management.
European Union Ambassador to Singapore Dr Michael
Pulch told the ASEAN journalists that "At the end, we hope to see the
realization of EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement."
He also assured that EU is ready to help ASEAN
increase connectivity by providing financial support to build infrastructure.
Connectivity is very important in narrowing development gaps and ensuring
better flow of ASEAN peoples and goods.
The EU ambassador expressed his optimism that ASEAN
Community will become a better grouping, one day, with more power to face
globalization.
"Let's hope that EU will become an example or
inspiration for ASEAN," Pulch told the ASEAN journalists participating in
the two-day workshop.
One of the EUs greatest success stories is market
integration allowing free movement of people, goods, services and capital).
Citizens all have a similar EU passport.
The European Union has set itself the objective of
becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society in the world.
As a result, education, professional training and support for young people have
become three major priority areas.
Environmental preservation has also become one of EUs
priorities in order to safeguard quality of life for current and future
generations. The regional grouping has also embarked on the ambitious project
to combine environmental protection and economic growth.
One of the latest EUs policies that could also be
another inspiration for ASEAN is the abolition of mobile roaming charges within
the EU which will be realized in mid-2014.
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