Asean-European Community relations: political and economic dimensions of inter-regional cooperation

Abstract

The establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in August 1967 and of the European Economic Community (EEC) ten years earlier show some remarkable similarities. Both were established with clear-cut and specific economic objectives in mind; yet both organisations were politically motivated: in Europe the fear of a repetition of intra-regional strife and the threat of the Soviet colossus, in ASEAN the fear of Southeast Asia's political security after the United States military withdrawal from Vietnam. In ASEAN economic factors were submitted as a rationale to step up national resilience, since economics is the weakest link in the chain of factors backstopping national resilience, whereas in the EEC (which since the Merger Treaty of 1967 became known as the European Communities of EC) economic factors were cited as a rationale for moving towards the two integration or political union. No wonder that the relations which evolved between the two regional organisations since the early 1970s seemed to be dominated by economic concerns.