OP-ED | OPINION-EDITORIA: EU is seducing ASEAN
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ASEAN-EU partnership (-/-)
Editorial board
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
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Last week Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and her Czech counterpart Jan Lipavský chaired the High-Level Dialogue on the Indo-Pacific in Prague, which saw 55 countries represented. The Czech Republic will be next year’s president of the Council of the European Union, while Indonesia the 2023 chair of ASEAN. France, the current EU president also hosted a similar dialogue in Paris. The two events demonstrate the EU’s desire to play a more significant role in the Indo-Pacific. The EU adopted its vision for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific in September 2021. The strategy, like those of many other global players such as the United States, Japan and Australia, acknowledges
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ASEAN’s centrality in the implementation of Indo-Pacific cooperation, at least on paper. ASEAN itself has adopted the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), which is based on the principles of inclusivity, openness and non-containment for all states that interact in the region This year, ASEAN and the EU celebrate their 45th anniversary of cooperation. In the last few years, the EU has sought every path to move closer to the 10-member ASEAN. It is rather surprising because in the past their relationship epitomized ties between donor and recipient or between champion of democracy, human rights and environment and novice. The EU also prefers to have a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with individual ASEAN member states.
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With Indonesia, for example, an FTA negotiation remains far from completion, especially in resolving disputes over palm oil. But the big success of ASEAN in forming the world’s largest trading bloc, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) with its partners, should have shocked the EU. The EU pushed ASEAN to elevate its status from formal partner to strategic partner in December 2020. For the EU, collaboration between the two regional groups is based on “shared values and principles such as rules-based international order, effective and sustainable multilateralism, free and fair trade”. The EU looks eager to boost its economic and military presence and influence in the Indo-Pacific with one of its strategic goals being to contain an increasingly assertive China amid the significant decline of US power in the region. For ASEAN the arrival of more outside powers on the high seas is mostly welcome as a counterbalance to China’s hegemony. The EU’s promotion to becoming ASEAN strategic partner will be a big leap.
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So far the EU could only send ministerial-level officials to the ASEAN’s Regional Forum (ARF). With the new level, the EU will be invited to the East Asia Summit, which gathers leaders of ASEAN and its dialogue partners. This persistent approach of the EU to win ASEAN’s heart has given an impression that the former needs the latter more than ASEAN needs the EU. Unsurprisingly the EU has toned down its preaching about human rights, democracy and the free market. The EU and ASEAN had already formed another collaboration forum, the 51-member Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM). The two sides hold a leaders’ summit every two years, with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen hosting a virtual summit in November last year. But ASEM is too large and only serves as a consultation forum. For Indonesia, leveling up ASEAN-EU cooperation into a strategic partnership is geopolitically important because it will provide ASEAN with stronger bargaining power vis-a-vis major powers, especially the US and China. TOPICS : ASEAN European-Union partnership Indo-Pacific US China rivalry South-China-Sea RCEP
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Click to read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2022/06/22/eu-is-seducing-asean.html.
● Thu, June 23, 2022
