ASEAN needs to improve its principles

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.