Towards productive EU-ASEAN dialog

Towards productive EU-ASEAN dialog

By Aurora Ferrari

Europe can play a more effective role in its relations with ASEAN.

SINGAPORE: The relationship between ASEAN and Europe goes back many years. Indeed, the European Community (EC) became ASEAN's first dialogue partner in 1972. However, Europe has failed to capitalize on the opportunities provided by ASEAN's early overtures.

Europe has so far lacked a clear strategy for South-east Asia. Above all in recent years, European Union (EU)'s ASEAN policy has been on a zigzag course between realpolitik and moralism and between principles and embarrassing opportunism.

From 1993, the EU seemed to adopt a realist policy in order to strengthen its economic presence in South-east Asia. It toned down human rights issues at high-level meetings and concurred with ASEAN's line towards Myanmar.

ASEM, in particular, seemed to be the climax of this process. Yet, it is clear that the EU's strategy of giving priority to economic objectives without sacrificing the normative underpinning of its foreign policy requires a precarious balancing act. Unfortunately, the EU has so far been unable to strike the right balance. The EU has simply swept the controversial issues under the carpet, without settling a clear agenda.

A day-by-day decision-making approach would be efficient if the EU were capable of an effective common approach. However, foreign policy-making in the EU has been mostly characterized by an inter-governmental process dominated by national executives and the Council of Ministers. Hence, EU's ASEAN policy proved to be a misleading deferment policy and controversial issues soon resurfaced, as the developments after ASEM have shown in the case of East Timor and Myanmar. The consequences of such a precarious policy have been disastrous: contradictory statements from the member states, from the European bodies and even from the same European institutions.

The 1992 Dutch-Indonesian controversy over aid proved how member states do not act in unison. Moreover, the controversy showed how countries can react when pressured too hard. In the end, the damage can be greater for the donor than for the receiving country. At the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) in 1994, the German Foreign Minister representing the Presidency softened, in his speech, European criticism of the Myanmarese junta and the ASEAN policy of constructive engagement. On the same occasion, the EU Commissioner responsible for political external relations seemed to accord a much higher priority to human rights and democracy in his speech. The commission launched two strategy papers dealing with South-east Asia in 1994 and 1996. Although intensified economic cooperation continues to figure as the overriding objective, the 1996 paper puts a much greater emphasis on human rights.

Abrupt policy shifts and a cacophony of contradictory statements generate only great confusion. Moreover high moral attitudes are not credible when they are easily dismissed for short-run economic gains, as it was shown in the 1992 aid controversy in Indonesia.

Clearly these policy reversals signify weakness in Asian eyes, causing a loss of prestige for the EU. Such a lack of trust and respect inevitably inhibits the effort to develop channels of communication and fora where disputed issues can be discussed. This is even more true if we consider that ASEAN cooperation is dependent on a high level of harmony, consensus and informal personal relations.

Indeed the success of Europe in South-east Asia very much rests on the assumption of a common and new approach. Given the strong influence of the U.S. and Japan in the region, none of the individual member states can build up an equally significant presence in the area alone.

All member states in one way or the other would benefit from "economies of scale", rather than struggling for their luck on their own in the region. (In this respect, the French and British attempt to obtain a special status separate from the EU in the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) can have negative consequences for the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), since ASEAN countries can exploit this request to their advantage by driving a wedge into the EU).

Ultimately, the problem of a common approach can be solved only through a substantial reform of CFSP, as conceived in the Maastricht Treaty. If the EU really wants to become an independent political actor, it should, at least, fully subject its foreign policy to the rule of majority voting.

As far as the new approach is concerned, the success of the EU policy does not lie in the creation of new devices but in deeper understanding, even cultural empathy. The solution does not lie in a value-based or a realist policy, rather in a bi-dimensional strategy, which means, on the one hand, pragmatic official relations and, on the other, the creation of new channels of unofficial communication which avoid public confrontation and may be better suited for dealing with issues involving values.

This does not mean that fundamental issues such as human rights should be sacrificed on the altar of economics. It must be clear that there are limits to the toleration of human rights violations (like genocide, massacres perpetrated by security forces, torture, and so forth) whatever European economic interests maybe. However, given Europe's relatively weaker economic position, these fundamental values must be pursued in a way that makes the economic costs tolerable. It should not be forgotten that European economic competitiveness and jobs are vital interests for the union because they are the foundations of the European model of social peace and security.

If high-level official and public relations concentrate on more practical matters, for example economics, public condemnations of Asian governments by Western leaders could be avoided. In Asian eyes, these attacks can only be interpreted as a deliberate affront and another example of colonial paternalism. In order to avoid unnecessary public humiliations, the EU could install early warning mechanisms at the non-public level.

Finally, divisive political issues should be taken up in a more sophisticated manner than hitherto. For this purpose, there should be an incentive to shift controversial themes from the official "track one" to an informal track. This approach could also be extended to the business sector, as the Commission encouraged in its 1996 strategy paper, something that ASEAN currently does not engage in.

"We should concentrate our activities on the things that bind us, instead of those that divide us," said the Singaporean Foreign Minister. As far as the European side is concerned, this does mean renunciation of values that have often guided its foreign policy, but pursuit of them in a constructive way. A two- tier strategy seems to be an essential condition.

Aurora Ferrari is a Visiting Associate at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.