Asia-Europe Meeting

Opening ceremony at the ASEM summit 2010 in the Royal Palace in the Belgian capital, Brussels .

The Asia-Europe Meeting ( Asia-Europe Meeting ASEM) is an interregional dialogue forum that for the multilateral exchange between Europe and Asia in the areas of politics , finance and economy , culture , education , environmental and climate protection , labor and transport used becomes.

Foundation and development

Heads of State and Government at the 8th ASEM Summit in Brussels in 2010

In 1994 the Prime Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong , proposed the concept of an “Asia-Europe Summit” to his French counterpart, Édouard Balladur , in order to deepen relations between Europe and Asia. The first consultations were held in March 1996, with 16 European (the then EU member states and the EU Commission ) and ten Asian participants, namely the seven ASEAN states as well as Japan, China and South Korea taking part . Deliberations of Foreign Ministers, Ministers of Economy, Finance, Environment, Immigration and Technology were held simultaneously.

Since 2004, the new ASEAN members Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos as well as the ten new EU states have also been participating in ASEM. At the 2006 summit in Helsinki, it was decided to accept Bulgaria, Romania, India, Mongolia, Pakistan and the ASEAN Secretariat. This was followed by Australia, New Zealand and Russia in 2010, Bangladesh, Norway and Switzerland in 2012 and finally the new EU member Croatia and Central Asian Kazakhstan in 2014.

tasks

ASEM is designed as an informal forum for dialogue between European and Asian countries. The aim of the biennial summit meeting of the heads of state and government from Europe and Asia and the ministerial talks is an exchange on issues and problems of Asia and the EU as well as exchange among themselves. ASEM is thematically based on three pillars:

• Politics: The core area of ​​ASEM. Cooperation through ad hoc meetings at foreign ministerial level. The main topics are migration and environmental problems as well as technological-scientific exchange.
• Economy: Cooperation through regular meetings of the economy and finance ministers. The Asian-European Business Forum (AEBF) and various so-called core groups have now been added.
• Culture, education and social affairs: Here too, cooperation through ad hoc meetings at ministerial level. The main topics are educational exchange, the preservation of cultural heritage and social welfare. This column is the Asia-Europe Foundation ( Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) ) assigned based in Singapore.

Summit meeting

The official summits also provide opportunities for informal dialogue on current crises and developments - here Russian President Vladimir Putin, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President François Hollande (France) on October 17, 2014

The core of the regional dialogue are the summits at which the heads of government and states of all member states meet. They take place every two years alternately in Asia and Europe. The previous meetings have been held in Bangkok (Thailand; 1996), London (Great Britain; 1998), Seoul (South Korea; 2000), Copenhagen (Denmark; 2002), Hanoi (Vietnam; 2004), Helsinki (Finland; 2006), Beijing ( PR China; 2008), Brussels (Belgium; 2010), Vientiane (Laos; 2012), Milan (Italy; 2014), Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia; 2016) and on 18./19. October 2018 in Brussels .

The next summit is scheduled to take place in Phnom Penh in 2020 .

Members

ASEM members (2010)

Currently (2015) ASEM has 53 partners (51 states and two organizations):

• Europe (31 states and European Union)

  Belgium , Bulgaria , Denmark , Germany , Estonia , Finland , France , Greece , Ireland , Italy , Croatia , Lithuania , Latvia , Luxembourg , Malta , Netherlands , Norway , Austria , Poland , Portugal , Romania , Russia , Sweden , Switzerland , Slovakia , Slovenia , Spain , Czech Republic , Hungary , United Kingdom , Cyprus and the European Union

• Asia (20 countries and ASEAN Secretariat)

  Australia , Bangladesh , Brunei , China , India , Indonesia , Japan , Cambodia , Kazakhstan , Republic of Korea , Laos , Malaysia , Mongolia , Myanmar , New Zealand , Pakistan , Philippines , Singapore , Thailand , Vietnam and the ASEAN Secretariat

Web links

• ASEM Infoboard, in English
• Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)
• Konrad Adenauer Foundation; The Asia-Europe-Meeting (ASEM): Actors and interests

Commons : Asia-Europe Meeting  - collection of images, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Wikinews for the demonstration against the ASEM meeting in Hamburg, May 28, 2007  - message

literature

• Vinod K. Aggarwal, Min Gyo Koo: The Evolution of APEC and ASEM: Implications of the New East Asian Bilateralism. In: European Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol. 4, No. 2, 2005, pp. 234-261.
• Christopher Dent: The Asia-Europe Meeting and Inter-Regionalism - Towards a Theory of Multilateral Utility. In: Asian Survey. Vol. 44, No. 2, 2004, pp. 213-236.
• Howard Loewen : Theory and empiricism of transregional cooperation using the example of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM). In: Writings on international politics. Volume 6, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-8300-0945-3 .
• Alfredo C. Robles: The Asia-Europe Meeting: the theory and practice of interregionalism. Routledge, London et al. 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-45223-6

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Asem summit begins with expansion ( memento of the original from October 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Time online, November 5, 2012 
2. ↑ Westerwelle advertises trust Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung online, November 5, 2012