First thought as a means towards economic expansion, globalization has revealed unseen problems. In a time of deep uncertainties in the developed world, Europe needs to interact more actively with Asia to ensure financial stability and economic growth, thus encombatting a potential resurgence of poverty, which could constitute a source of social upheavals and conflicts in wide areas.

Rapid economic integration has taken place in the region of the Association of South East Asian Nations- ASEAN encompassing ten countries (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Union of Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and East Asia. Bilateral and regional free trade agreements have been reached among them, with Australia, India and New Zealand as well as with countries on the other side of the Pacific rim: The USA, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru within the framework of the Asia-Pacific economic Council-APEC. The European Union-EU needs to be pro-active in this area and show flexibility in sensitive issues, among others the issues of agricultural subsidies and intellectual property.

ASEAN aims to reach an ASEAN Economic Community-AEC inspired by the former European Community by 2015. Thus, the EU and the European Commission could help ASEAN in addressing challenges posed by an economic community from its own experiences. The member States of ASEAN are presently focusing on connectivity in order to forge a closely linked infrastructure. Europe has ample means and expertise to help in this venture. One ultimate goal is to link Southeast Asia to Europe by rail.

Beyond the huge markets of China and India, ASEAN also represents a big regional market of over 600 million people. Asia looks at Europe and the EU politically as strong and reliable partners for peace and international security, as a model of a social market economy with a corporate governance, a source of knowledge, valuable research facilities, applied sciences and modern technology. Renewable energy and environmental protection are excellent cases where Europe is leading.

Together, Asia and Europe would be able to bring long term solutions to global problems: How to preserve life when human population keeps growing, how to combine development with the preservation of life itself. This, in turn, represents a serious common challenge for Europe and Northeast Asia: The ageing and potential shrinking of their populations. The only viable response is not to disengage, but to engage more actively with other parts of Asia.

Europe has been the model of institutions building over the centuries. Today the European architecture has found an emerging counterpart, the East Asian architecture, the core of which has been driven by ASEAN+3 (China, Japan, South Korea), ASEAN+1 with other countries in the Asia-Pacific and the East Asia Summit.

Another important development is ASEAN’s aim to forge a Security Community. It underlines the complementarity between regional and international security. Whereas the United Nations Organisation has remained the only legitimate body for international law and security, it depends also on regional and less costly organizations. It remains to be seen, if the latter would be more responsive to security threats.

If the UN Security Council shape and mandate have been untouched in its political function, the vital needs of economic life and economic survival saw a rapid evolution from G7 to G8 and now to G20, of which India and Indonesia belong to. Europe and the EU should help design bold and far reaching reforms in financial and economic architectures for the sake of long term sustainable socio-economic development.

ASEAN and East Asia went through severe financial and economic crisis in 1997-1998. They emerged strengthened and committed to a common future within the ASEAN+3 architecture. Among others, they built a swapping arrangement from initially US$ two billion in 1998 to encompass now US$ 120 billion.

Today, East Asia has the financial means to steer its own economic growth. Europe rule based economy should take into account the Asian mind set animated by pragmatism. The rights of the individuals are in complementarity with community values. An individual needs a caring family, without which there can be no happiness.

If industrialization has been hallmarked as the engine of wealth, long term prosperity lies on fertile land, clean water and clean air, which are interdependent on each other. Asia and Europe are called upon to join hands and share knowledge as did our fathers to give future generations not an easy life, but a decent living. Francois Rabelais wrote in Pantagruel in 1532 this sentence: ”Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’âme”. Science without conscience brings only the ruin of the soul. Let us abide by our faith in the wisdom of our ancestors. They are not out of time, not out of touch.

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