EU-Asean minus FTA expected in three years’ time
Bernama | August 06, 2008
EU-Asean Minus FTA Expected In Three Years’ Time
From Kristy Inus
JAKARTA, Aug 6 (Bernama) — An EU-Asean Minus Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is expected to be established within the next two to three years’ time, a European Commission official in Indonesia said.
EU-Asean Cooperation counsellor of European Commission Delegation to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, Vasilica Basil Constantinescu, said the FTA Minus will include member states that are ready to conclude the agreement first, and is likely to exclude Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia until they are prepared to join the pact.
"The FTA (will be done) in two phases. We are talking to all member states; some of them are ready to get on with the negotiation process while some of them are not but the approach would be at a regional, at a group level.
"It will not be separate bilaterals, as it is not possible to negotiate regional FTA with (individual) member states," he said after the briefing to journalists from nine Asean countries in the Commission office, here.
Constantinescu was commenting on EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson’s statement in May this year that the EU was in the process of introducing some flexibility in the region-to-region pact framework which will take into account the different levels of development within Asean.
Asean which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, is the fifth largest export market of the EU and also its fifth largest trading partner.
The EU is the second largest trading partner for most countries in Asean after the U.S.
