Pascal Lamy forges ties between Europe, Asia

Pascal Lamy forges ties between Europe, Asia

David Kennedy, Contributor/Jakarta

Although Pascal Lamy's term of office as European Union (EU)
trade negotiator is drawing to a close he shows little sign of
slowing down.

The 57-year-old Frenchman, a keen marathon runner, spoke to
The Jakarta Post on the margins of a meeting of economic
ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
after which he was returning to EU headquarters in Brussels, via
Singapore, Fiji and Brazil. He claimed he actually ran more than
he flew but his jet lagged assistants begged to differ.

Since 1999 the tireless negotiator, who speaks with a slight
French accent, on behalf of all 25 EU member countries on trade
issues, has been a driving force behind trade talks between
regional blocks around the globe. His personal approach, strong
negotiation skills and straight talking style have earned him
admirers and critics.

Though he denies any interest in jumping from planes, a
persistent rumor in Brussels has it that the commissioner enjoys
parachuting. Laughing easily at such jibes, he remarked "it has
been written in many portraits that I was looking like a
parachutist which is not quiet the same!"

The commissioner is used to hearing stories told about him.
Playing the role of sole negotiator on behalf of a group of
countries -- with often divergent economic and political
interests -- has meant he has had to have a thick skin.

He was the public -- and often unpopular -- face of Europe
during the collapse of the Doha Development Round of trade talks
in Cancun last year, which many antiglobalization and fair trade
activists partly blamed on the EU's aggressive negotiating
stance.

However, since the talks were salvaged in Geneva last July the
commissioner is upbeat about the prospects of a world trade
agreement in the coming years. He will pass the baton to former
UK Cabinet minister Peter Mandelsen who takes over as trade
commissioner on Nov. 1, and if there's enough time to prepare he
will run in the New York marathon a week later.

Until then he is busy concluding interregional trade deals in
South America, bilateral trade and economic agreements in
Singapore and Thailand, and cooperation initiatives with ASEAN
among other regional trade discussions.

"We've had, for the last five years, a discreet but very close
advisory role in ASEAN," he said, explaining that the European
Union has gone through a similar process of economic integration
to Southeast Asian nations.

"There are parallels or analogies... the notion that you've
got to start with economic integration, creating a sort of trust
between countries," said Lamy adding, "creating that level of
trust nowadays is basically about creating trust in the ability
to regulate and regulate in a convergent way".

ASEAN integration was still operating, he said, on the basis
of consensus, "the Asian way" and this would be something he
believed the grouping may have to look at in the future to ensure
effective trade dispute settlement mechanisms.

The EU is keen to develop trade links between blocks and
favors inter-regional trade agreement over bilateral deals which
some critics argue may weaken resolve for a fair world trade
agreement.

"We've made a decision that whichever development we have
under an FTA (free trade agreement) or FTA-like shape would be
bloc to bloc. We know it's not easy given the heterogeneity of
ASEAN but we've also been reflecting on how to do that and there
is no impossibility."

At the ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting (AEM) last weekend
ministers agreed to cooperate on four common areas of interest
with the EU: agriculture, electronics, fisheries and wood based
industries.

The EU, with a population of 450 million, is ASEAN's second
largest export market after the U.S. and a Trans-Regional EU-
ASEAN Trade Initiative (TREATI) was launched last year to improve
cooperation on issues such as food safety and customs. In recent
years EU importers have complained of problems with contaminated
seafood, a major Southeast Asian export market.

"TREATI is not a substitute for a free trade agreement. It's
the building blocks," said the commissioner, claiming that Europe
prefers to take a more gradual approach than trading partners
such as China or Japan in strengthening trade links between
regional groupings.

"They make a big announcement that they're going to have an
FTA negotiation and then it takes years to get there because it's
very complex," he said.

"We have sort of another way of doing it. We invest, we
prioritize and then once this is done, the rest we believe is
easier. This is the experience we have has in recent years in
negotiations with Mercosur (South America) for example."

Whether or not he will be involved in future EU or WTO
negotiations is something Commissioner Lamy refuses to comment on
for the moment.

His career has spanned government, politics and banking. An
advisor to Jaques Delors -- then finance minister in President
Mitterand's socialist government in the early 80s, Lamy became
chief of staff to Delors in 1985 when the later became President
of the European Commission. He left the Commission in 1994 to
head up the restructuring of the major French Bank, Credit
Lyonnais and returned as trade commissioner in 1999.

Committed to the cause of European integration, Lamy is
optimistic that the current low public opinion ratings for the EU
among voters in European countries are not part of a steady
decline in the bloc's progress.

"If you look at 50 years of European integration there have
been ups and downs so it's not a sort of long constant evolution
which will go either this way or that way," he said adding a word
of warning.

One important thing the EU and ASEAN share in common, he said,
was the need for people to feel connected to the integration
process.

"This notion that you have to do things in the name of
regional integration cannot remain only with technocrats or
business. It must be linked to people. It's true that business is
probably the engine but at some stage it has to find a democratic
base in order to move and this has been our experience."

Ends.