The EU-ASEAN Strategic Partnership and its Prospects

Seminar Series on Europe-Asia Relations

“The EU-ASEAN Strategic Partnership and its Prospects”

Wednesday, December 14, 2022

2 – 4 p.m.

Room Gallery 1, Pullman Bangkok Hotel G

188 Si Lom, Khwaeng Suriya Wong, Bang Rak, Bangkok 10500

jointly organized by

the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Thailand Office

and the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG), Faculty of Law, Thammasat University

in collaboration with the Asian Governance Foundation (AGF)

Background:

The first-ever summit between leaders of the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on December 14, 2022, is held to celebrate 45 years of cooperation between the two organizations. Since the EU became ASEAN’s Dialogue Partner in 1977, relations have seen steady expansion on economic, trade, and political levels, leading to the elevation of ties to a Strategic Partnership in December 2020.

The EU-ASEAN Summit follows a string of high-level summits over recent weeks including the G7 foreign minister’s meeting in Münster, the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, the G20 Summit in Bali, the APEC Summit in Bangkok all in November, as well as the most recent China-Arab States Summit and the summit between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council in Riyadh.

Expected as an opportunity to mutually reaffirm friendship and commitment to the common strategic partnership, the EU-ASEAN Summit comes at difficult times with both blocs facing mounting global challenges and regional challenges calling for an ever greater cooperation.

In times of a fraying global order under the signs of increasing great power competition, fierce geopolitics, and a globalization in retreat, both the EU’s and the ASEAN’s member states are struggling with serious economic difficulties. Insofar, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused disrupted supply chains, energy and commodity shortages, and a soaring inflation.

In this situation, both organizations are internally struggling with diverging view points over long- standing demands for structural reform in general and a coherent position towards Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine in particular.

While the most recent G20 and APEC summits turned out to be successful in preserving the very integrity of the respective forum, the meetings revealed notable differences between majorities among EU and ASEAN member states present at the summits about how to envision the international rules based order with regard to violations of international law as being committed by an aggressor Russia. While members of the G7 are unified in condemning Russia, ASEAN member states within the G20 and APEC respectively turned out to be reluctant to follow.

Such diverging viewpoints notwithstanding, both blocs face the same fundamental challenges. Sharing not only long-standing and well tested relations they also share the potentials and restrictions small and middle powers are experiencing in the given global state of play.

Against this backdrop, the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG) and the Thailand Office of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) cordially invite everyone to join a vivid discussion forum to look at the Summit and the explore challenges and potentials for the EU and ASEAN and their potential for further cooperation.