Prospects for EU and ASEAN Relations in the 21st Century: Growing Closer Together or Drifting Further Apart?

Abstract

In recent years, scholarly discussions on the relations between the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been dominated by economic issues, in particular the negotiation of a planned interregional Free Trade Agreement (FTA) which has, for the time being, failed to materialize. In an attempt to escape the centrality of economic issues, this volume illuminates central aspects on the relatively unexplored theme of political — or simply ‘non-economic’ — relations between the two entities. We also distance ourselves from security-centred approaches, prevalent in contemporary US debate, which tend to look at the ASEAN region primarily from a geopolitical perspective. Instead, this volume explores the long-neglected EU-ASEAN political relationship. From a geopolitical point of view, the EU and ASEAN are not of central importance to each other, and this is not expected to change in the immediate future. The relationship between the two regional groupings is characterized by a stark economic imbalance, whereby the economic might of the EU remains largely unmatched by ASEAN. In contrast to the Asian financial crisis of 1997, which weakened many ASEAN members considerably, the 2008 global financial crisis has left ASEAN largely unscathed, with some states even experiencing economic growth.