Question: The EU has formulated a strategy on the Indo-Pacific even though the bloc is far away from the region. What is the strategy’s main focus?

Answer: We are far away but close at the same time. We are heavily connected with Asia through economy, trade, technology and people-to-people connections. Therefore, we have a major interest in the trade routes that connect Asia with Europe. The EU is the second-largest single trading partner of ASEAN, only after China, and also the biggest investment partner of the Southeast Asian bloc.

We need to look to the future, when Asia – China, India, Indonesia and ASEAN as a whole – will continue to grow fast. As Europeans, we need to recognize that Asia will be, or already is, the biggest economic bloc or region in the world. We want to connect with Asia, with Indo-Pacific to support that positive growth. We also like to engage with the region on positive policies and areas that affect us in a very open manner, such as the climate and green agenda, as well as data and cyber protection.

It’s important that our approach is inclusive to build partnership and cooperation with all countries in the areas where we can find common interest, rather than excluding and being against anybody. ASEAN has also been our top priority and strong focus.

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Many Indo-Pacific strategies emphasize great power rivalries between the United States and China. How is the EU going to position itself on this issue?

Our wish is to play a positive and stable role in such global rivalry. We want a relationship with both countries very much. With the US, our partnership has strong and long historical roots. We have also seen, with the US’ new administration, a tremendous dynamism in our bilateral relations.

We are seeking a relationship with China as well. But we have to recognize a number of challenges with China in areas where we fail to see eye to eye at the present moment.

Our high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borell, has said very clearly that the relationship with China is extremely complex. We have China as an economic competitor in the global market as well as a systemic rival in the sense that it pursues a different model of governance and values than ours. At the same time, we have positive interaction with China as a global partner for issues for public goods, for instance in the area of climate and green economy.

We feel now in between these, there are a lot of common goals possible to be engaged with the majority of Indo-Pacific countries in various areas of common or consensual interest. That’s what we want to pursue under our Indo-Pacific strategy.

How have the bilateral relations between Indonesia and the EU been during the pandemic?

We have strategic cooperation on fighting the pandemic. From the EU side, we made available for Indonesia alone a portfolio of projects worth 200 million euro (US$242 million). Around 22 million euro was in the form of grants to civil society organizations to help their constituencies down at the grassroots and vulnerable people during the pandemic.

The cooperation has also been strong at the level of the multilateral side, particularly through the vaccine dialogue. The EU is the biggest single contributor to the COVAX facility under the Gavi vaccine alliance, with around 2.6 million euro in grant funding. As of now, Indonesia has been allocated a quantity of 13.7 million doses from the alliance.

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The EU acts on the principle that this is a crisis that you can’t solve on your own turf only. It’s clear that you have to act on your own territory for your own citizens, but a global solution requires that everybody solves it on their soil and, when necessary, richer countries help poorer ones combat the pandemic.

Considering that many countries, like India, are experiencing a second wave of the outbreak, do you think there are more responsibilities for developed nations to help?

For the EU, the sense of responsibility and solidarity is very strong. The president of the European Commission, [Ursula von der Leyen], who is a medical doctor by training, has stated that nobody is safe until everybody is safe in this pandemic. That’s the key policy driver behind our approach. We will continue to reach out to the emerging and developing countries to help vaccinate their people.

Are there updates on the joint working group on palm oil?

We’re happy that the joint working group has had its first meeting. We’re satisfied with the result, which was starting the dialogue on the controversial topic. We have listened very carefully to the points made by ASEAN member states, particularly Indonesia, on the need for a holistic look at palm oil. We are now planning the second meeting, which might be slated for May, and will take a step further to look at some of the specifics of the policy files.

It’s important to stress that the working group has created a track for dialogue for improving mutual understanding, fact gathering on both sides and building a greater common understanding about the policies and scientific situation in order to plan the basis of cooperation.

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It is not a platform to deal with the very particular disputes on biofuels and the EU's renewable energy policy. Those disputes still exist, but the good thing is that we are now treating it exclusively in the framework of the World Trade Organization.

This week has been full of meetings in Geneva pertaining to the dispute settlement procedure. The WTO procedure will run its course and whatever comes out of it will be implemented. That’s our commitment and Indonesia’s as well.

It's our multilateral institution that we have come to to deal with topics like this. That’s the best way forward because it allows us to proceed with everything else. We want to build greater cooperation with Indonesia beyond palm oil in our green and climate agenda.