TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
EU can do much more to support ASEAN’s ambitious agenda
In order to change shifts and reach a new level of cooperation, it is indispensable to upgrade the level of political mechanisms between EU and ASEAN.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
East meets West: European Union High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell (right) attends the EU ministerial meeting as part of the 55th ASEAN Foreign Ministers' meeting in Phnom Penh, on Aug. 4, 2022. (AFP/Tang Chhin Sothy )
When was the last time that the heads of state and government of the European Union and ASEAN countries met?
The answer to this question is not only instrumental for a frank assessment of the current state of the relations between the two regional blocs. Reflecting about it is also an imperative, a “must” to sketch out the future trajectories of the relationships between ASEAN and the EU.
All in all, despite huge advancements crowned in 2020 by the elevation of the EU as strategic partner of ASEAN, this reckoning still resembles a half empty glass.
Yet the tide is changing and the prospects to advance this relationship are rosy but the EU must go well beyond the considerable efforts they have valiantly put in the last few years.
Let’s not forget, first and foremost, that it was only last year that the EU Mission to ASEAN became a fully-fledged EU delegation.
The last EU-ASEAN meeting was held virtually from Phnom Penh on Nov. 25-26, 2021 and the next one will be held in 2023 in Europe but details will be probably finalized over the EU-ASEAN Commemorative Summit to be held tomorrow (Dec. 14) to mark 45 years of relationships between the two entities.
This summit is going to be the first one where only and exclusively EU and ASEAN leaders of all the respective member states will meet.
