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View all search resultsEU is seducing ASEAN
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.
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L
ast 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 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. 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.
