EC chief, Goh push for European-Asian summit

EC chief, Goh push for European-Asian summit

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuter): A summit of European and Asian
heads of government to discuss strengthening economic and
political links is becoming more of a possibility, two key
leaders from the regions said on Saturday.

Jacques Santer, newly installed president of the European
Union's executive Commission, told the World Economic Forum in
Davos he saw such a gathering along lines of two similar Asia-
Pacific summits being held "in the near future".

Singapore Prime Minister Goh Tok Chong, also speaking at the
annual meeting of world business and political leaders in the
Swiss mountain resort, said a Europe-Asia summit was "now a
distinct possibility" within 10 to 16 months.

But the two men offered differing approaches to the issue of
cooperation between their regions.

Santer, a former prime minister of Luxembourg who took over
the top EU post last week, said the Union "will continue to press
for further market opening in many of the Asian-Pacific
economies, some of whose markets remain impenetrably closed for
financial services as well as goods.

"I believe the opening of the Asia-Pacific and South American
regions, politically and economically, are an immense opportunity
for the European Union to extend its influence in the world.

"I therefore welcome and will encourage deeper political and
economic ties with all countries in these regions. I welcome the
call for a summit between the European Union and Asian leaders in
the near future," Santer added.

Goh told the Forum a dialog between the two regions "will
recognize our growing interdependence in a shrinking world".

He added: "It will educate both sides to accept the limits to
which we can or should try to influence each other."

Rejecting calls from Europe and the United States for a link
between labor conditions in emerging economies and trade rules,
Goh said Asia "cannot achieve overnight the social standards that
took decades and even centuries to achieve in Europe itself.

Acceptance

"Europe must accept this," he added. "Barely a century ago,
the protectionist lobby in the U.S. raised a similar cry against
what it called the "pauper labor of Europe'."

Goh said Asia had no wish to see perpetuation of sweatshops
and low wages.

Many U.S. and European politicians and labor leaders argue
that such operations give the Asian economies an unfair trade
advantage by making their goods cheaper.

But he said these conditions would continue to exist in Asian
countries "as long as their supply of hungry, under-employed
labor is plentiful".

Europe, he said, should engage the Asian states including
China "in trade and investments that will enable them to grow
rapidly, soak up their labor surpluses and provide higher value
jobs."

Trade sanctions -- which some critics of last year's GATT
world trade accord have suggested -- "will not raise wages and
social conditions in developing countries to any artificially
imposed norms, any more than they can raise their national
incomes," Goh said.

But, in a gesture towards Europe, where trade union leaders
have expressed concern at a further rise in unemployment as jobs
switch to cheaper regions under the GATT treaty, the Singapore
leader said Asia must recognize Europe had legitimate concerns.

"Asian nations must recognize that protectionism will gain
increasing ground among European electorates if their governments
are unable to demonstrate that more output is created by European
exports and investments than jobs lost in competition with Asia,"
he said.