Mid-life reflections on ASEAN and the EU

Mid-life reflections on ASEAN and the EU

Apichai Sunchindah, Jakarta

Indonesia is hosting in Jakarta this week the 15th ASEAN-EU
Ministerial Meeting to discuss developments in the relations and
cooperation between the two regional blocs, the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU). One
interesting observation is that both entities are "middle-aged";
the EU will soon reach its 48th anniversary come March 25. ASEAN
is now in its 38th year and will be 40 in two years time.

When EU celebrated its 40th birthday some eight years ago, The
Economist ran a special series of articles on it. One of them had
the headline Learning to love the EU, and contained expressions
like "The European project was built by the elites; it has never
sought or expected widespread popular support... Certainly, the
EU is complex and hard to understand... The gap between the
bureaucrat in Brussels and the man in the street is widening...
So how can Europeans learn to understand it, let alone love
it?...Europe needs to be explained to ordinary people...it is not
the message that is at fault, but the failure to communicate it
effectively."

Another article carried the heading Europe's mid-life crisis
and included descriptions such as "Europe's people seem
disillusioned with the whole Euro-business...a dangerous gulf has
opened up between the Union and the concerns of its citizens...
It all adds up to something of a mid-life crisis for the EU."

As EU was approaching 40, it was facing key issues on three
fronts known as "pillars", i.e. common foreign and security
policy, economic and monetary union and cooperation in justice
and home affairs. Interestingly, ASEAN had recently made
declarations to achieve a full-fledged ASEAN Community by 2020
based on three pillars of cooperation in the political/security,
economic and socio-cultural spheres, broadly mirroring the EU
pillars.

As ASEAN's 40th anniversary nears, the association also faces
some tough challenges in terms of addressing the political
developments within one of its member states as well as a key
2007 deadline for economic integration whereby the more developed
6 countries of ASEAN are supposed to remove completely their
import tariffs for the 11 priority sectors that have been agreed
upon earlier.

Here in ASEAN, a paper recently tabled at one of the ASEAN
meetings acknowledged the challenge that "after 37 years of
promoting cooperation in Southeast Asia, ASEAN has yet to gain
substantial public recognition of its contribution to the region.
In fact, not many people outside the official ASEAN circles know
of ASEAN's existence, let alone appreciate ASEAN's
achievements... Obviously, ASEAN has to do more in promoting
public awareness and common regional identity... Therefore public
apathy about ASEAN must be overcome urgently. Only when there is
sufficient public interest and support to ASEAN can the noble
endeavor of building an ASEAN Community by the year 2020 be
achieved satisfactorily."

One ASEAN observer noted, "ASEAN remains principally a project
of government leaders and technocrats...with little effort to
make it a popular democratic enterprise. Not surprisingly, 'ASEAN
brotherhood' has very little resonance at the grassroots."

He went on to say, "There are many things we can learn from
Europe, including some negative lessons, and one of this is that
in the first three post-war decades, integration was a largely
technocratic process that was not subject to democratic
surveillance. As a result the EU develop its notorious
'democratic deficit', resulting in the well-known disaffection
among many electorates in Western Europe that have stymied more
comprehensive political integration and monetary unification."

In late 2004, former EU Environment Commissioner Margot
Wallstrom was appointed as the first ever EU Commissioner for
Institutional Relations and Communications. This came about from
the realization that an effective communications strategy to sell
the EU to a still sizable number of skeptical and less than
enthusiastic European public was sorely needed particularly with
the European constitution coming up for referendums and
ratifications in each of the member states in the months ahead.
Interestingly, she has even co-authored a book last year entitled
THE PEOPLE'S EUROPE or Why is it so hard to love the EU?

In the UN, there is someone in the person of Shashi Tharoor,
the Under Secretary General for Communications and Public
Information who is in charge of the organization's communications
strategy especially for ensuring coherence and effectiveness of
the UN's external messages.

However, within ASEAN, there is no such equivalent position
like that in the UN or the EU yet although the need for effective
communications of ASEAN to the public is gradually being
recognized. It is hoped that with the numerous impending
challenges facing the association as it approaches "mid-life", it
could even be a good opportunity to finally get some credible
corporate communications strategy off the ground soon. After
almost 40 years of cooperation, there should be something good to
show and tell in a manner readily comprehensible to the
layperson.

It looks like institutions, big or small, all face the equally
important task of explaining itself in terms understandable to
the stakeholders and the public at large. Perhaps this is
something organizations like the UN and EU, which are more
experienced and endowed in this regard, could offer their
assistance and provide advice or lessons learned to ASEAN.

While promoting visibility and better appreciation of ASEAN-EU
cooperation activities are no doubt beneficial, the ultimate
barometer of success is probably how well ASEAN and EU are
communicated to and understood and accepted by their respective
constituencies.

The writer is the Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation
located in Jakarta. The views expressed in this article are his
personal one. He can be reached at
apichai.sunchindah@aseanfoundation.org.