Towards a Dynamic ASEAN-EU Partnership

Abstract

In 2007 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) celebrates 40 years of existence and the European Union (EU) marks half a century since its legal inception through the Treaties of Rome.

Bilateral links between the two entities started officially in 1977 and were institutionalized in 1980. The ASEAN-EU Ministerial Meeting is at the apex of their dialogue process.

From that perspective, there is a consensus to work out necessary practical arrangements to further strengthen and reinvigorate the ASEAN-EU cooperation.

The EU is ASEAN’s fourth largest trading partner. Collectively, the current 27 EU members rank first among the sources of direct foreign investment to ASEAN.

In operational terms, the EU must reconsider the importance of ASEAN within its foreign policy. This is the most complex challenge confronting EU-Asia diplomacy.

In this context, ASEAN may prove to be a privileged target of innovations in the EU’s diplomatic strategies. The gradual accession by the EU and some of its members to the 1976 ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) would contribute to a more dynamic and persuasive trend in developing cooperation between the two entities.

The EU and ASEAN have urgent multilateral priorities, including the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, United Nations(UN) reform, global security, responding to natural disasters, giving a human face to globalization and countering transnational crime, terrorism, illegal immigration and epidemics.

ASEAN and the EU are expected to redesign their economic relationship. A “new transregional partnership” is suggested.

The new partnership would be comprehensive in scope and more dynamic in action, while paying balanced attention to both trade and investments. It must be ambitious in addressing integration issues and win-win cooperative measures on the two continents.

The EU heads of state and government adopted on March 25,2007 the “Berlin Declaration” which re-affirmed European values and outlined an optimistic perspective for the EU. Relations with ASEAN will be re-assessed and further developed on the basis of the Nuremberg Declaration on Enhanced EU-ASEAN Partnership.