Topics 1: The EU and Asia: Significance of Mutual Interests
The European Union and Asia: The Meanings for Each Other
2016 Volume 2016 Issue 36 Pages 1-28
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2016 Volume 2016 Issue 36 Pages 1-28
This paper tries to shed more light on the relations between the European Union (EU) and Asia in these two decades from the middle of 1990’s to today. Two regions have been undergoing significant changes internally, and at the same time heavily strengthening relations between them.
There are three levels of relations between EU and Asia to be examined due to the division of the competence between the EU and the Member States.
The first is a multilateral forum called Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), born in 1996 at the first summit at Bangkok and will celebrate 20 years anniversary in 2016 at Ulaanbaatar. The one of the visible changes of the ASEM is the enlargement of its members. With enlargement of members from 26 in 1996 to 53 in 2014, the EU is no longer Europe, and the ASEM has become a forum for real region-to-region dialogue and cooperation.
The second is bilateral relations between the EU and the members of Asia grouping of ASEM just as the EU・Japan relations. As the EU had changed its policy from world trade round to bilateral FTAs in October 1996, more emphasis have been on bilateral FTAs and mega FTAs.
The third is traditional bilateral relations of the Member States of the EU and the members of the Asian grouping of the ASEM such as Anglo・Chinese relations. To conclude trade agreement is matter of the power of the EU but the Member States are able to make trade promotions separately. Especially China matters for European countries as rush of the bilateral summit meetings in Autumn 2015 vividly showed.
By analysing these complicated multi-layer relations between the Europe and Asia, this paper is to examine how both groupings mean to each other.
