EU to focus on trade, crime at Asian summit

EU to focus on trade, crime at Asian summit

BRUSSELS (Reuters): European Union leaders will push for freer trade, a closer political dialog and joint action to combat international crime when they hold a biennial summit with 10 Asian nations later this week.

Heads of government of the 15 EU and 10 Asian countries that make up the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), together with European Commission President Romano Prodi, gather in Seoul from Thursday to Saturday for the third summit of the group, created to forge stronger ties between the two continents.

The last ASEM summit in London in 1998 was overshadowed by the Asian financial crisis, which had sent three of ASEM's Asian members -- Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand -- to the International Monetary Fund for $100 billion in bailouts.

The economic environment is less gloomy this time, although surging oil prices are worrying consumer nations. Ensuring stable energy supplies will be on the ASEM agenda.

The group's other Asian members are Brunei, China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.

EU officials will urge the summit to recognize "the importance of stable energy supplies at reasonable costs for all regions of the world", according to an EU document.

Although criticized in Asia at the time for doing too little to help with the crisis, EU officials now argue that decisions from the last summit -- including setting up a trust fund to help Asian economies and a pledge to keep markets open -- played an important part in easing the economic crunch.

"Fortunately, there has been a substantial recovery in Asia and that has been partly helped by the easy access to European and American markets," EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told reporters last week.

EU officials will welcome renewed economic dynamism in Asia at the summit but stress the importance of continued reform.

EU leaders will also stress the "crucial importance" of an early launch of a comprehensive new round of global trade talks and the early accession, on effective terms, of China and Vietnam to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

EU officials are eager to keep up the pressure for another attempt to launch a new round of WTO trade liberalization talks. A declaration at the end of the Seoul summit is expected to call for a new round "at the earliest opportunity".

Information technology will be another key theme. EU officials say they will call for stronger cooperation between Europe and Asia in the "new economy" and support a South Korean proposal for an "EU-Asia information superhighway".

On the political front, the EU will stress its interest in regional developments in Asia, particularly in East Timor, North Korea and Myanmar -- whose human rights record has been regularly criticized by Brussels.

On Monday, Vietnam's foreign minister began an official visit to Myanmar as Southeast Asian nations wrestled over divisions on how to deal with the political deadlock in Yangon.

Hanoi's Foreign Ministry said Nguyen Dy Nien's visit would last two days but gave no details of his agenda. Vietnam is the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The trip was clearly hastily planned as Nien had been scheduled to speak at a Vietnam-European Union seminar on trade on Monday in Hanoi but canceled at the last minute.

Members of ASEAN are split over whether to mediate in Myanmar, where the military government has held Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of her opposition National League for Democracy under house arrest for weeks.

ASEAN agreed in July in Bangkok to form a "troika" of three members to try to help resolve political and security disputes, but its Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino told Reuters in Hanoi last week there was "no question of mediation" in this case.

Communist Vietnam said earlier this month "relevant" ASEAN members had rejected the idea on the grounds it would be interference in Yangon's internal affairs, a long-held ASEAN taboo.