The Jakarta Post
European Union Ambassador to ASEAN Francisco Fontan will complete his tenure in Jakarta in July. The Jakarta Post's Dian Septiari sat down with him recently to discuss key issues between the two regional blocs. Below are excerpts from the interview: Question: What are flagship cooperation initiatives that the EU has achieved with ASEAN? Answer: We have 200 million euros in cooperation with the ASEAN Secretariat -- those are the projects we carry out with the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN member states. One-third of it is essentially on biodiversity. We started three years ago with 10 million euros to support the ASEAN biodiversity center in Manila, but this year we have launched a peatland project worth 20 million euros to preserve peatland in ASEAN. Another third deals more with underpinning the ASEAN Economic Community. Europe is the largest investor in ASEAN, we invest m...