By IPS Correspondents
BRUSSELS, Sep 12 2006 (IPS)

At this week’s Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Helsinki, experts were unanimous that if Europe and Asia keep investing in political and economic cooperation, it could pay huge dividends for a multilateral world.

“Asia is being confronted with problems that are not manageable without new forms of international cooperation,” said Indonesia’s Jusuf Wanandi, on Tuesday, while referring to the ASEM at the ‘Asian Voices in Europe’ seminar, a day after the conclusion of the sixth biannual meeting.

Beijing will host the seventh ASEM summit in October 2008. ‘’I’m looking forward to join(ing) hands with all leaders here to make concerted efforts to deepen the strategic dialogue between Asia and Europe,” said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, addressing the closing ceremony of the ASEM, Monday afternoon

‘’Challenges like international terrorism, the risk of financial instability and global poverty cannot be addressed unilaterally, in the way that the United States is doing now,” argued Wanandi, who is co-founder of the Centre of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta and president director of the ‘Jakarta Post’ newspaper. The seminar was organized by the European Policy Centre and sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.

As the centrepiece and guarantor of the international system ‘’we have to make sure that they (U.S.) is not further de-legitimized”. Finding new ways to manage international challenges has to be done together with the U.S., the Indonesian expert thinks.

“But it is unlikely that the present administration (of President George W. Bush) will change its policy for the remaining two years. What Europe and Asia can do is demonstrate that the multilateral approach works and prepare the ground for later cooperation with the U.S.” Among other things, ASEM could promote a cultural dialogue between Asia and Europe, aimed at better understanding, Wanandi suggested.

ASEM, an informal forum aiming at strengthening dialogue and interaction between governments, business people and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Asia and Europe, was launched in 1996.

The ASEM is still a modest undertaking, despite the economic and political weight of its members. The official part of the forum now consists of the governments of the 25 European Union members, the European Commission, the ten countries of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and South Korea. ASEAN consists of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia.

In Helsinki, the ASEM decided to admit six new partners: Bulgaria and Romania as two future EU member states, as well as India, Pakistan, Mongolia and the ASEAN-secretariat to keep the balance between the two regions. With these new partners, who will attend the Beijing meet in 2008, the ASEM would cover almost 60 percent of the world’s population.

Still, it is mainly about exchanging ideas and consensus building. The forum is seen as complementary to other international meetings where real decisions are being made. Together with diplomatic tensions caused by the presence of Burma as one of the new ASEAN states, it led to a devaluation and almost a standstill of the ASEM process during the last years.

But among experts, the feeling is that ASEM has made a new start in Helsinki. “The common resolve of Asian and European partners on restricting but not banning Myanmar(Burma), allowed the partners to focus again on cores issues,” European Council staff member Antonio Tanca said. “The ASEM process has been put back on track.”

Tanca sees possibilities of “fruitful cooperation” in the fields like inter-religious dialogue and environment. The official participants to ASEM 6 adopted a joint declaration on climate change. Without being specific, they pledged to “add momentum” to international actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and “step up cooperation and investments in clean technologies.”

Several experts agree that cooperation between Asia and Europe should not be limited to official relations only. “The relationship should be deepened. There should be more involvement of people’s organizations and a more effective relation between business groups from the two regions”, Wanandi said.

“ASEM is too important to be left in the hands of politicians,” David Camroux agreed. “The dialogue between NGOs and so called GONGOs (Government Organized NGOs) is very important. That is where the impact will come from,” Camroux, senior research associate at the Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales in Paris, added.

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