The idea of cooperation between the EC and ASEAN was an endeavour initiated at the fourth meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers, also known as ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), in 1971. ASEAN states made the first move because with the British accession to the EC imminent in the early 1970s, two former British colonies and ASEAN members, i.e. Malaysia and Singapore, were concerned about the loss of Commonwealth preference in the British market (European Commission, DG for Information 1976: 2; 1981: 3).46
As it wished to intensify relations with the EC, ASEAN pressed for a regular dialogue between the ABC and the EC’s Permanent Representatives Committee. The purpose of this dialogue, which was first held in November 1977 and then in July 1978, Consequently, in June 1972, a Special Coordinating
Committee of ASEAN Nations (SCCAN) was set up, consisting of the ASEAN ministers
of Trade and the ASEAN Brussels Committee (ABC), which was composed of the ASEAN ambassadors to the EC, with the responsibility to develop ASEAN’s relations with the EC (European Commission, DG for Information 1985: 4). Two years later, both sides agreed to set up a Joint Study Group (JSG), which met regularly from June 1975, to explore all possible areas of future cooperation (European Commission, DG for Information 1976: 3).
46 Until the end of 1972, Malaysia and Singapore (along with other Asian members of the
Commonwealth, e.g. India and Pakistan) had enjoyed tariff preferences on the British market under the Commonwealth system (European Commission, DG for Information 1976: 2).
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was to supplement the activities carried out by the JSG. At these two meetings, ASEAN also pushed for a ministerial conference, which it had already conducted with Japan, Australia and New Zealand in 1977, and there was a favourable response from the EC (European Commission, DG for Information 1979a: 5; 1981: 4). Subsequently, the first conference of the foreign ministers of the EC and ASEAN, known as the ASEAN-EC Ministerial Meeting (AEMM), was held in November 1978 in Brussels. This meeting, often considered to be the real birth of interregionalism because it was the first time a ministerial meeting between two regional organisations was held (European Commission 1979b: 2),47 gave EC-ASEAN relations greater political significance.48
As explained, ASEAN initiated links with the EC because it wished to gain greater access to European markets for its primary and manufactured products. It also wanted to receive more investment and development aid from Europe (Harris and Bridges 1983: 28). Equally, economic interests, e.g. better access to Southeast Asia’s natural resources and markets, were also an impetus for the EC’s institutionalisation of relations with ASEAN (European Commission, Information Memo 1978: 1; Nuttall 1990: 149-50). However, as acknowledged by the European Commission’s President Roy Jenkins (1978: 5) at the first AEMM, their cooperation “goes wider than trade”. From ASEAN’s perspective, a formal partnership with the EC conferred tremendous prestige on ASEAN (Wannamethee 1989: 21). For the EC, it was also of great interest to promote ASEAN and to assist the development of links between the two organisations (Genscher 1978: 113-4). ASEAN countries actively sought an increased European interest in their region because they wanted to limit economic presence of the Notably, at this meeting, the ministers decided to launch negotiations for a formal cooperation agreement (Drury 1979: 19). These negotiations were opened in November 1979 and rapidly led to the conclusion of a Cooperation Agreement (CA), formally signed at the second AEMM in Kuala Lumpur in March 1980 (European Commission, DG for Information 1985: 5). The signing of the CA marked the beginning of a new stage in the EC-ASEAN linkage because not only did it form the basis for their cooperation but also formally institutionalised their relations (Yeo 2009a: 47).
47 In 1974, when the EC sounded out ASEAN countries as to whether they wished to establish agreements
similar to those that the EC had concluded with India in 1973, ASEAN governments indicated that they all preferred to establish their relations with the Community on a regional basis, i.e. a region-to-region relationship (European Commission 1979b: 1).
48 The EC’s first ministerial conference with ASEAN had been held before the agreement was signed. In
contrast, the first ministerial meeting between the EC and EFTA (European Free Trade Agreement) took place 12 years after the EC-EFTA Free Trade Agreement was signed (Lukas (1989: 108).
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US and Japan’ (European Commission, Information Memo 1978: 1; Rüland 2001c: 9). For European countries, their presence in Southeast Asia offered them the chance to reassert their position in a geo-strategically relevant region (European Commission, Information Memo 1978). The political-strategic dimension was even of incomparably greater relevance than economic one (Mols 1990: 72). For this reason, the EC-ASEAN relationship was regarded as economic in form but political in intent (Indorf 1983: 119; Harris and Bridges 1983: 73; Mols 1990: 69; Nuttall 1990: 150).
A defining security factor that accelerated their cooperation was communism. In the years when it deliberately courted the EC, ASEAN was very concerned about communism, especially after North Vietnam’s victory over US-backed South Vietnam in 1975 (Tasker 1987: 106). To respond to this threat, in 1976 ASEAN’s leaders held an unprecedented summit, during which they signed the ASEAN Concord I and the TAC. As will be shown in Chapter 5, these documents highlighted ASEAN’s commitment to the principles of non-national sovereignty and interference. They also highlighted ASEAN’s commitment to preserve the stability of the region and its member states, particularly against the threat of subversion. This posture was strongly supported by the EC (European Commission, DG for Information 1979b: 1; 1981: 1). After the Bali summit, they also sought to forge special links with major powers (Mols 1990: 66). It was in this context that the EC became a vital partner for ASEAN, even though the EC was basically an inward-looking player without much actor capacity in foreign and security areas (Rüland 2001c: 12).
Vietnam’s intervention in Cambodia (then Kampuchea) and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1978 and 1979 respectively brought the EC and ASEAN even closer together in late 1970s and during the 1980s (Rüland 2001c: 12). As both of them were anti-communist blocs, they feared that those expansionist postures could destabilise their respective region (Regelsberger 1989: 82-83; Soon 1989: 61). That is why their relationship was seen as “a bulwark against communism” (de Flers 2010: 4). The first AEMM placed a strong focus on the Cambodian matter. The 1980 Cooperation Agreement, also the first formal agreement that the EC concluded with another regional group, was signed at the second AEMM, during which the Afghanistan issue became prominent (European Commission, DG for Information 1981: 8). At this conference, they also issued a Joint Statement on Political Issues (AEMM 1980b), which was the first time that the two groups publicly adopted a joint stance on major political issues (Harris and Bridge 1983: 53; Hull 1984: 22; McMahon 1998: 235). At the ninth AEMM
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in 1991, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jacques Poos recalled this statement and stressed its importance because it was the first time the EC and ASEAN spoke with one voice to condemn the invasions of Cambodia and Afghanistan (Poos 1991). The issues of Cambodia and Afghanistan continued to dominate the AEMMs throughout the 1980s (AEMM 1981; 1983; 1984; 1986; 1987).
3.2.2. Political success and desire to enhance economic cooperation