Programa de Valorización

By the early 2000s, both the EU and ASEAN realised that they needed to revive their relations and their economic cooperation in particular.59

Coupled with those global transformations, the EU and ASEAN also experienced major changes. For the EU, a significant move it made was to alter its trade policy. Instead of focusing on the establishment of political and security-oriented agreements as it did in the 1990s,

This was motivated by a number of important changes at different levels during the first years the 21st century. Globally, as underlined by the EU’s Global Europe Strategy, the world witnessed developments that “are as significant for the world economy and international relations as the end of the Cold War” (European Commission 2003a: 3). One of these was the rise of Asian countries, notably that of China (Fukuyama 2008; Zakaria 2009; Moore 2011). Another is the intensification of the process of regionalisation (Hurrell 2007: 130), which resulted in the proliferation of FTAs (Sen 2008b; Senti 2010). A major cause of this shift was the failure of the Doha Development Agenda (Woolcock 2007: 2). Another reason is that in this post-American world, each country, and maybe each regional organisation, planned to shape its own future in its own way (Gardels 2007; 2008; Grugel et al. 2008; Khanna 2008).

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Yeo (2009b: 45) regards as the fourth and current phase, which was one of re-discovery because both sides have been seeking to rebuild their relations.

it now paid attention to the negotiation and conclusion of primarily commerce-oriented ones (Aggarwall and Fogarty 2004; Woolcock 2008). This shift was aimed at taking advantages of huge opportunities, e.g. new markets, and meeting challenges, e.g. increasing competition for access to markets and raw materials for its members that the major transformations in the world economy brought about (European Commission 2006a: 3). Consequently, the EU sought to establish FTAs with major emerging economies and regions (European Commission 2006a: 7). In this context, it

60 _{These included cooperation agreement with CEE countries (European Commission 1995c; Inotai}

1995), and with countries surrounding its borders, e.g. the Euro-Med Association Agreement (Attinà 2004; European Commission 2006a: 10-1; Woolcock 2007: 3; Boening 2009).

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wanted to enhance economic cooperation with ASEAN by seeking to establish an FTA with it (Camroux 2010: 67; Cremona 2010: 247; see also Gavin and Sindzingre 2009).

ASEAN also witnessed significant changes (Neves 2004: 4-10), which helped to transform itself into a coherent grouping (Prado 2010: 362). After being heavily affected by the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis and other issues, e.g. the ecological crisis caused by the haze in 1999, the humanitarian crisis in East Timor (Yeo 2007b: 180), ASEAN as a whole and its members sought to recover their economies and to rebuild their organisation.61

Together with, and thanks to, the global changes and the developments within the EU and ASEAN, their relationship also experienced positive changes. Unlike in the One of the moves it took was the agreement to create an ASEAN Community, based on three pillars, namely political and security, economic and socio- cultural, during its ninth summit in Bali in October 2003 (ASEAN Summit 2003). Moreover, with the aim of competing with countries like China and India, ASEAN countries realised that they needed to transform their organisation, making it formal, legalistic and rule-based (ASEAN official, interview, 2009). For this reason, from 2005 ASEAN began to discuss forming an ASEAN Charter, which was eventually signed in 2007. They also agreed to create a Human Rights Body (HRB) to deal with this sensitive issue, and two years later, at their 42nd AMM, ASEAN Foreign Ministers adopted the Terms of Reference for this HRB (AMM 2009; ASEAN Secretariat 2009d). The creation of the HRB is a significant step in the ASEAN’s evolution because “five years ago, we could not even talk about anything called ‘human rights’” (ASEAN official, interview, 2009). According to an EU official, the process of democratisation began to take place in some ASEAN countries, e.g. Indonesia and Malaysia, and ASEAN’s efforts to accelerate its integration, for example through the creation of the ASEAN Charter, which was welcomed by the EU, contributed to the improvement of the EU-ASEAN relationship. Moreover, with the aim of maintaining its relevance, ASEAN sought to advance its relations with its major Asian neighbours, especially China, Japan and South Korea, as well as India, Australia and New Zealand (Smith 2004: 416-33). This resulted not only in creating the EAS in December 2005 (Malik 2006: 207), but also in leading ASEAN to enter into negotiations FTAs with these regional powers (Sen and Srivanstava 2009; Kawai and Wignaraja 2008; 2010; Wignaraja 2010; Senti 2010; see also Appendix 8).

61 _{During and after the AFC, ASEAN as an institution was widely criticised because it was unable to help}

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1990s, it was now less confrontational. Instead of expressing their disagreements bluntly, as they used to, they now tried to avoid or accommodate their differences. Indeed, as explained by the officials of the EU and ASEAN that the author interviewed in 2009, EU-ASEAN relations were much better than in the 1990s. Major changes in ASEAN mentioned contributed to this improvement. In addition, there was a better understanding on the part of ASEAN about what the EU wanted to achieve in its integration and its relations with ASEAN (EU official, Interview 2009). There was also the change of attitude on the EU side because after a very tense period in the EU- ASEAN relationship because of what happened in East Timor and Myanmar, the Europeans realised that the EU others may operate different from the (ASEAN official, Interview, 2009). These changes in perceptions helped improve the relationship. Consequently, after being disrupted by the disputes over human rights and the Myanmar problem, the AEMM was resumed in Vientiane, Laos in December 2000 (Kazmin and Williamson 2000). Even though the EU sent only low-ranking officials to the meeting, the fact that it was held again was a significant development for their relations.

In 2001, the EU also published Europe and Asia: A Strategic Framework for

Enhanced Partnerships, in which it emphasised that strengthening of its partnership

with ASEAN “will be a key priority in the coming years” (European Commission 2001: 22). In 2003, in an attempt to revise its partnership with ASEAN, the EU issued A New

Partnership with South East Asia, covering a wide number of areas.62

62 _{It identified six areas as strategic priorities in its relation with ASEAN, which also included promoting}

human rights, democratic principles and good governance (European Commission 2003: 3-4).

The 14th AEMM in 2003 also injected a new momentum into EU-ASEAN relations since at this meeting the ministers extensively discussed how to reinvigorate their relationship, notably commercial cooperation. Concretely, with the aim to revive their relationship, with the objective of revitalising their relations and their economic cooperation in particular, they initiated a number of mechanisms. One of these was the establishment of the

Regional EC-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument (READI) in 2005, which covers a wide

variety of non-trade issues, ranging from transport, home affairs and justice concerns (e.g. human trafficking, transnational crimes, and money laundering), and the environment. Another initiative was the creation of the ASEAN-EC Project on Regional

Integration Support (APRIS), which was set the process of regional integration in

ASEAN. Along with the EU’s participation in the Initiatives for ASEAN Integration, APRIS was expected to contribute to narrowing the huge development gap among

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ASEAN members, which consequently would promote further regional economic integration (Yeo 2009a: 54). Since APRIS’s establishment, which was also aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity of the ASEAN Secretariat, the EU made significant assistance towards ASEAN to support its regional integration efforts. Around €1.3 billion was committed for development cooperation to support the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community (Yeo 2009b: 16).

The third initiative was the Trans-Regional EU-ASEAN Trade Initiative (TREATI). This programme, which was launched during the third ASEAN Economic Ministers and EU Trade Commissioner Consultation (AEM-EU Consultation) in 2003, was aimed at enhancing trade relations between the two regions (AEM-EU Consultation 2003). Since its creation, several workshops and meetings were held in Brussels and ASEAN countries (Abbate et al. 2008: 10). These activities were aimed at preparing the foundation for a potential ASEAN-EU FTA. Besides these schemes, at their 16th AEMM in 2007 in Nuremberg, Germany the EU and ASEAN adopted the Nuremberg

Declaration on an EU-ASEAN Enhanced Partnership. In this Declaration, both sides

pledged to enhance EU-ASEAN dialogue and agreed to step up cooperation in the fields of political, security, economic, social and development cooperation (AEMM 2007a; 2007b). In addition, to implement the Nuremberg Declaration in the medium term (2007-2012), they also agreed to develop a Plan of Action (AEMM 2007b, point 28). This plan was endorsed by the Heads of State/Government of the EU and ASEAN at their Commemorative Summit in Singapore in November 2007, which was held to mark the 30th anniversary of the formal relationship between the two organisations.

These developments and initiatives, notably the TREATI, paved the way for the two regions to launch negotiations towards a region-to-region FTA in 2007. Yet, despite significant perceived strategic and economic benefits such an FTA would bring to the two organisations, as well as great enthusiasm of both sides before the FTA negotiations (Geest 2004; Andreosso-O’Callaghan et al. 2006; Andreosso-O’Callaghan 2008; 2009; Andreosso-O’Callaghan and Nicolas 2007; 2008; 2009), they decided to halt the FTA talks in 2009. The third section of Chapter 7 will explore in more detail the factors that led them to open talks and the reasons behind the collapse of the talks. Since then, the EU decided to negotiate FTAs with individual ASEAN countries. In fact, it already opened negotiations with Singapore and Malaysia in 2010, Vietnam in 2011, and is planning the similar move with other ASEAN countries (Doan 2012a). One of the causes of the failure of the FTA negotiations was their differences over Myanmar with

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the EU refusing the participation of this country in the FTA whereas ASEAN insisted on its inclusion. This means Myanmar still negatively affected their relations in the 2000s. More precisely, it shows that while their relationship in the period 2001-2009 was less conflictual than in the 1990s, in terms of their ways of conducting regional and international affairs, the EU and ASEAN were still divergent and this prevented them from moving their economic and political relationship to a more substantial level.