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em>The economic slow down in Europe will continue for awhile longer, according to David O’Sullivan, Chief Operating Officer of the European Union (EU)’s External Action Service. However, the condition does not prevent the EU from boosting economic cooperation with strategic partners such as ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and Indonesia in particular. The Jakarta Post’s Yohanna Ririhena interviewed O’Sullivan on the EU’s relations with Indonesia and the region.

Question: What is the specific purpose of your visit to Indonesia?

Answer: My main purpose is first to demonstrate our strong interest in the relationship of the EU with Indonesia and the region, particularly in the context of many meetings that will take place during this year with the ASEAN ministerial meeting in April in Brunei, the ASEAN Regional Forum in Phnom Penh in July and the ASEAN Summit in November. So, it is going to be an important year of engagement between the EU and the region.

We are looking at the whole spectrum of our relationships. Of course, we are strong supporters of the ASEAN integration process and Indonesia has played an important role in ASEAN.

What is the latest development in negotiations toward the establishment of the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)?

We have the report from the (Indonesia-EU) Vision Group and we have been in discussions with our Indonesian colleagues. It is still focusing on the Indonesian side to decide what they want to do, but our strong hope is that we would be able to launch the negotiations in the next few months.

What is the EU’s target?

We believe that there is a huge scope for a win-win negotiation, which will be good for both Indonesia and the EU, both in trade and investment.

Trade negotiation typically takes a couple of years. The fastest we had ever negotiated was with South Korea. It took two and half years, while other negotiations were longer than that.

Is there any specific barrier impeding the talks to start the negotiations?

We are concerned about certain protectionist tendencies, globally. We are of course great supporters of the WTO (World Trade Organization) negotiation for multilateral trade liberalization. Since the prospect for this seems not very encouraging at this moment, we believe bilateral agreements between the EU and strategic partners are the best way forward and that we can do with Indonesia.

We can have the substantial liberalization of trade, as well as laying the foundation for an even better investment relationship.

The EU is the second largest source of foreign direct investment in Indonesia, with 700 companies employing about 500,000 people. We believe that there is a scope for doing more.

With the ongoing eurozone crisis, what is the prospect of the EU’s involvement?

We are going through a difficult time in Europe as a consequence of the global financial crisis which started in 2008. I think we are gradually seeing the stabilization of the situation in the eurozone.

But the interest throughout the crisis and economic pain, particularly in the European countries with high employment, there has been no rise of protectionist sentiment.

I think Europeans see trade as part of the solution and part of the way forward in promoting growth, as collectively Europe is the world’s largest economy. I think people want to create further trade and investment opportunities with our partners, such as with Indonesia.

Do you see the impact [of the eurozone crisis] on the relationships between the EU and Indonesia?

What we can see is the slow down of growth in Europe and we know that this will continue for a little longer before we see a return to signs of encouraging growth.

For the moment, we are consuming less and importing less, but this is a temporary phenomenon and we hope that very soon we can bounce back and see the resumption of increasing imports and a renewed pattern of rapid growth. Europe is the largest trader with the largest imports in the world. This is a pattern which I think will continue to develop.