The Political Economy Of Interregional Relations Asean Eu

Editor's Notes

• #4: Contradictions with EC Policy of the aim of integrating developing countries into de world economy, on the one hand, and those of poverty reduction and strengthening civil society participation.
• #5: ASEAN a factor of stability and balance that contributes to the maintenance of peace in Southeast Asia (e.g. Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia)EC recognition of ASEAN as a developing region into practical actions required some negotiations, because of this the EC responses were cautious, simply due to the significant share of the cost and the burden resettlement. ASEAN adopted a export-oriented industrial polices and was needed trade preferences. ASEAN’s desire for tariff reduction “trade preferences” ran up against the constraints inherent in the EC development policy, which continued to be dominated by those favored preferential treatment for former European colonies in Africa ‘Regionalist’. In the first few years of the GSP on ASEAN trade with EC countries’ agricultural exports actually qualified for more preferences than manufactured products. The impact of GSP on ASEAN trade with the EC seems to have been limited. In the short run, the constraints on the EC’ development policy and the Common Agricultural Policy prevented substantial modifications of the GSP to meet ASEAN trade demands. Given this restrictions Financial Cooperation appeared to be ‘the most necessary instrument of an overall cooperation policy’‘Globalist’ justified extending the EC’ development policy as a way of ensuring EC presence in the major developing regions resulting in the launching of a program call: Financial and Technical Aid, US$20 million , it is doubtful whether consideration if ASEAN’s concern alone was decisive in the decision to launch this program. More likely it was the outcome of combined pressures form Asia and Latin America, the latter being equally, if not more, frustrated, over the EC’s inability or unwillingness to enter into a sustained dialogue with it. The fact that ASEAN countries received only a modest amount of development assistance from individual EC member states, and none at all from the EC as an organization, was an additional argument for launching an aid program.
• #6: Colonial relationship still influences heavily the pattern of aid distribution. The primary recipient of DUTCH grants was Indonesia, which accounted for 94% of total DUTCH grants, Malaysia received nearly 34% iof UK Grants. France , which had no former colony among the ASEAN member nations, gave no grants at all to any country. For the other Three EC member countries with no colonial links (GERMANY, BELGIUM, AND ITALY) Indonesia was the primary recipient, a choice which can be explained by the size of that country’s population and its abundance of natural resources of strategic interest to the European countries. Only Denmark deviated with this pattern having Thailand as the first recipient of its modest effort. ASEANS acceptance of the offer of developmental assistance, which it had not pursued aggressively, should be interpreted in the context of the structural limitations of regionalism in Southeast Asia. First year of ASEAN existence, no economic cooperation project had initiated a process of regionalization in Southeast Asia.
• #7: One advantage of the recipient countries was the fact that assistance consisted entirely of grants. In the case of a heavily indebted country such as the Philippines, although EC assistance accounts for only 14% of all European aid to the Philippines, it is 99% in grant form, in contrast to total European assistance , which is only 56% in the form of grants. Within the recipient countries, European policy was focused on RURAL DEVELOPMENT. At 1980 AEMM food production, storage, and distribution, land and rural development, and water utilization were identified as priorities. Most of the major projects funded by the EC, whether autonomously or in collaboration with others institutions, has been in support of AGRICULTURE or otherwise located in the COUNTRYSIDE. Irrigation, rural production, and services or integrated rural development represented over half (55.67%) of total ASEAN member states between 1976 and 1995. Scarcely any INDUSTRIAL PROJECTS, unlike in Latin America, nor major INDRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS. This could be seen as EC responsiveness to the MAJOR NEEDS of the MAJOR POPULATION. EC and ASEAN do not interfere in Domestic affairs of individual member countries, but during dictatorship in the Philippines, EC commitments increased dramatically, as a form of support for the democratization process in Philippines.
• #8: However Indonesia the Philippines and Thailand and ASEAN received 17% of commitments between 1976 and 1991 which represented more than half of the total share (29%) of the entire Latin American Group, composed of nearly 20 countries.
• #10: From the outsiders observer, It is difficult to form an accurate impression of the impact of EC development projects, due to lack of access to monitoring and evaluations documents. What can be highlighted is that development cooperation, which has so far been described as a relationship between the EC on the one hand, and the ASEAN as an organization in the other hand, also creates an important Social Relations between the EC and Civil Society (farmers, churches, organizations, groups among the community) . This relationship between the EC and Civil society was a crucial factor for the long term sustainability of development projects. Civil Society Participation from project identification, planning, and preparation up to implementation is significance. Some projects evaluations concluded that they were not successful. Among its recommendations was the need to involve beneficiaries from the very beginning of project planning. Planning and implementation were participatory. As a result, project sustainability was assured at both the farm and institutional levels. This were the main lessons learn from the EC development projects assistance.
• #12: First, economic growth has not yet eliminated poverty in sectors and subnational regions of two of the most populous countries in this region, Indonesia and the Philippines. Second, ASEAN enlargement since 1995 has added four new members-Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma- where poverty is more widespread than in the original member countries. In another sense, EC development cooperation is once more compensating for the structural limitations of Southeast Asian regionalism referred to in the previous presentations, notably the- unwillingness to ensure regional funding to regional projects.
• #13: After this the Question was: The range of objectives assigned to development assistance was so vast and the objectives themselves so ambitious that one is prompted to ask whether the small volumes of funds available can suffice for projects to meet these goals.
• #14: Relationship between Development Cooperation (DC) and other EC Policies (problem of COHERENCE) including harmonization of development policy and other external policies (i.e. trade policy and Common Foreign and Security Policy)Efficiency of DC assistance. Tensions created with the Civil Society involvement in the DC projects. Efforts to reduce poverty could be undermine by other EC Policies. (e.g. Common Agricultural Policies).The concept of Regionalism (in order to facilitate developing countries integration to participate in World’s Economy might contradict the goal of Poverty Reduction.
• #21: ASEAN IMPORTED from the EC transport equipment and machinery, contributing to EC surplus in TRADE with ASEAN. 1970s ASEAN adopted EXPORT-ORIENTES industrialization programs as early as the 1970s.The ASEAN member countries will become even more export-oriented in the 19880s all … will.. Need to find markets for their exports of resource-based as well as other manufactured goods… In the near future ASEAN trade expansion is likely to be extra-ASEAN rather then intra-ASEAN . The EC will therefore continue to be one of the most important markets for ASEAN. (AKRASANEE 1982)Only 13.7% of ASEAN countries imports originated from Europe. For the EC perspective ASEAN accounted for only 1.8 percent of EC imports, Thus it would be also the EC to increase the INTEREFIONAL TRADE. At the present three-fourths of EC primary textiles, garments and consumer electronic products came from ASEAN exports. See Table 3
• #22: Key Topic in regionalism: Discrimination between member and non-member countries in access to European Markets. The GSP’s aim was to promote Third World industrialization by providing market access to developing countries’ exports. Preferential treatment would be non-reciprocal, that is the Developing countries were not expected to grant similar preferences to developed countries.The EC/GSP, covering both agricultural and manufactured products was adopted in 1971 for a 10 years period and subsequently revised in 1981, 1991, and 1995, with minor improvements being introduced every year. Lobbying for GSP concessions opened up a new area of relations between the EC and ASEAN, which hoped to obtain additional concessions on behalf of its members. The relationship was and continue Asymmetrical. In the other hand, other European Policies set strict limits to the scope of the GSO, as is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which severely circumscribed the scope of preferences that could be granted to food and agricultural products. For the EC, industrialization in developing countries simultaneously offered opportunities and constraints. It would sustain demand for imports of technology-intensive manufactured products from the EC, thus supporting employment in the industrial sectors concerned. On the other hand, abundant labor supply in developing countries, particularly Asia, reduced the cost of production of simple consumer goods, which would compete with European Goods and in the medium and long term, aggravate unemployment in Europe
• #24: EC/GSP its professed objective was to stimulate industrialization of developing countries but it sought to protect the competitiveness of European producers through all sorts of restrictions (De Lotto,1993)In reality, even if the more advanced developed countries’ share in exports enjoying preferences was reduced, the low level of industrial development in the least developing countries prevented them from increasing their share of exports in the short term. European firms could then make up the difference. The rapid increase of exports to Europe from several ASEAN ensured that they would be severely affected by restrictions on products. The 1980 GSP reform fixed, for 64 very sensitive products, maximum amounts of duty-free exports in absolute terms (indiv. Country tariff quotas). The restrictions adversely affected all ASEAN countries except Thailand in plywood, Malaysia in Shoes, and Singapore in Radios, TV sets and Diodes. By 1981, 44 products exported by ASEAN member states were affected by butoirs, tariff quotas, tariff ceiling and special surveillance.
• #27: In the period 1990-92, exports from Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia that received GSP benefits grw by at least 70% and exports from Thailand rose by 37%.1995 4 ASEAN countries were among the top seven beneficiaries of the GSP. 1991 Annual tariff preference on Thai exports under the GSP was worth more than 200 million ECU, a figure that exceeded EC development assistance. At 1992 AEMM the EC proposed to gradually apply GATT principle of reciprocity in relations between the two groups. The ASEAN would have had to grant to the EC the same treatment that the EC granted to it, otherwise the EC could withdraw preferential treatment from ASEAN. The ASEAN-EC discussions on the GSP reform are a graphic illustration of the inequality in the relationship and the limits of ASEAN’s bargaining power vis-à-vis the EC in trade, in the face of determined EC Action
• #29: After conditions have been established, the importing country may impose antidumping duties (tariffs) whose effect is to eliminate the price DIFFERENCE.
• #31: Table 4 and 5 page 80 and 81
• #35: AEMM:AseanEuropean Union Ministerial Meeting