ASEAN leaders will join their EU counterparts in Belgium in December for their first summit, according to an informed source.
The summit will reportedly be held on December 14th and 15th at the EU Headquarters in Brussels and comes at a time when the international strategic environment is becoming more volatile. The EU became a strategic dialogue partner of ASEAN last year.
Topping the agenda will be the post-COVID-19 economic recovery, the impacts of the Russian-Ukraine war and the food and energy crises, among others.
The EU and ASEAN will commemorate their 45th anniversary as one of the bloc’s oldest dialogue partners. In recent years, both sides have intensified their diplomatic ties and cooperation.
Apart from being a major trading partner, the EU is also an important development aid donor, working to foster institution-building, democracy, good governance and human rights.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU mobilised a package worth over €800 million (29.2 billion baht) to help the Southeast Asian region.
Last year, the EU released its own Indo-Pacific strategy, which covers key issues it wants to promote in the region.
The EU has wanted to join the bloc’s premier strategic forum, the East Asia Summit, for quite some time, but there is no consensus among the members.
In 2012, the EU became the first regional organisation to accede to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, which was considered a new landmark the EU’s political and security engagement with the region.
