ASEAN needs to improve its principles

By Eddi S. Hariyadhi

JAKARTA (JP): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which celebrates its 31st anniversary today, is considered the most successful subregional grouping, whose economic growth outstrips that of developed countries and other groups of countries.

The success did not come from a void. Built on a politically worrisome setting, ASEAN countries must go through difficult periods of getting used to each other and treating each other more as friends than foes. The slow progress during the first decade owed much to the efforts to achieve common understandings.

The modest economic cooperation for more than two decades has become more substantial, especially after 1992, when it felt certain that such political stability was obtained.

The ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement is a confirmation that ASEAN's economic success is due more to members' individual economic programs and external relations rather than to the Committee on Trade and Tourism's gain.

The fact is, however, that the world reckons ASEAN as a very important player in the region. The making of the world's new triangular map cannot be estranged from ASEAN's role within the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and Asia-Europe Meeting.

Major countries accept it and agree to play their global role using ASEAN's platform. Its existence and roles are well recognized because it is ASEAN's undertakings which are able to summon the world's major countries to annual meetings -- Post Ministerial Conferences (PMC) since 1980 and ASEAN Regional Forums since 1994.

Yet, the past year has been witness to how Asia can suffer a dramatic reversal of fortune. ASEAN's reputation has plunged to is deepest point. Opinions, seminars and books are attempting to find out what went wrong; why and how. It is ASEAN's shortcoming to stop the crisis from happening and from worsening.

Even before the financial and economic crises, there were issues of new character, global in nature, that could not be settled satisfactorily by existing mechanisms. Haze and labor are two examples.

Out of economic bankruptcy, the other impact becomes real. Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim aired a constructive intervention, followed by Malaysian Minister for Foreign Affairs Surin, who proposed a flexible engagement.

Thwarted by Indonesia as well as other countries at the last ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM), however, there is already a feeling of unease among members to preserve the principle of noninterference that has long been believed as pillaring ASEAN's building.

It is far from the intention to judge that he ASEAN way is no longer correct but it is valid to question why ASEAN's existing mechanism could not give precise remedies to the ailments. Then again, thinking of new possible mechanisms that are more responsible to contemporary problems is just a sequential process.

The main strength of ASEAN, that has become its character, as touted, is the so-called ASEAN way, or Asian way, of doing things. This implies a values system which is totally different from the West's.

These values, the so-called Singapore school, base relations on harmony. ASEAN does not have a clean-cut mechanism on decision-making. Existing institutions -- summits, the AMM or the ASEAN Standing Committee -- function to provide opportunities for leaders to find consensus and cover up dissension. The following comparison between the European Union (EU) and ASEAN is aimed at giving a sharper portrait.

There are three characteristics of EU's integration that led to its present appearance.

* It is very legalistic. Treaties of Rome, Maastricht and Amsterdam are thick and detailed documents that regulate every single arrangement of the subjects covered, that should be transposed into national legislation of the member states.

* Institutionally, it has powerful institutions -- the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament, among others -- to implement the agreements.

* There is supranationality, a continuing transfer of national sovereignty from member states to the above institutions located in Brussels.

On the other hand, ASEAN has two principles of cooperation.

The first is informality-consensus-flexibility. Except for the Trade Agreement Committee (1976) and Bangkok Treaty (1995), ASEAN has not based its cooperation on international treaties. It was established in 1967 through a declaration. The document is short and concise and charts the principles. The elaboration is left to the leaders to carefully decide on consensus basis, while the implementation should be followed through in a flexible way.

The second is minimalism, which can be seen from the very rare formal undertakings. For 30 years, it has only conducted five formal and two informal summits and annual ministerial meetings, while the EU has had three-monthly (1975 to 1985) summits and six-monthly (1986 to present) summits. ASEAN's Jakarta-based small secretariat is manned by less than 40 people, compared to thousands of employees in the EU's Commission alone.

Again, it is not the aim to judge that one is better than the other, and it is not fair to simply put them in contrast. For one, they are different in character -- integration on the one hand and cooperation on the other.

What matters is the fact that the EU has so far been able to survive various difficulties in pursuing its integration process, while ASEAN is struggling to unscramble its biggest problem.

Although it is true that the results are yet to be seen, ASEAN's failure to handle new issues and new-fashioned statements from its political figures reveals an inadequacy on the other side of its strength.

The next question is, therefore, how should ASEAN transform itself into a stronger and more reliable organization, capable of addressing current and forthcoming problems in entering the next century?

Is ASEAN working on it? AMM's "enhanced interaction" tries to attune ASEAN's traditional principle into new reality. Yet, can the fact that Indonesia's affirmation that ASEAN has maintained its principle, and Thailand's claim that it has successfully gotten through its message, be regarded as the emergence a new regulation? One can appraise these different interpretations of the one consensus as echoing the same concept.

The ASEAN Regional Forum and PMC attested last July that ASEAN is still a highly respected group. But the message carried by its dialog partners also bears witness to their concern for ASEAN to wisely adapt itself to new challenges. As more nonconventional security matters, including like environmentally or population- related issues, move increasingly higher on the agenda, the need for ASEAN to adopt new businesslike mechanisms and regulations becomes more imperative than ever.

Should ASEAN still consider that bettering existing principles is taboo, it surely is not for ASEAN to learn from others' experiences to translate them into technicalities. The world is changing and the days ahead are carrying this message.

The writer is a staff member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has written this article in a private capacity.