DEVELOPMENT: Civil Society Demands a Place in ASEM

The non-governmental organisations who have come together as the Asia-Europe Forum (AEPF) are preparing for an alternative forum to be held parallel to the official ASEM summit in September.. More than 400 participants from NGOs and research institutions are expected to attend the alternative forum.

AEPF will seek to raise issues of labour standards, human rights and economic security at the summit, the organisers said.

The coalition of more than 80 NGOs from Europe and Asia has called on the Finnish government, which is also assuming the rotating six-month EU presidency in July, to open up ASEM to NGO participation.

"It is incredible that politicians in the current world situation still think they could take decisions involving inter-continental relations without listening to voices of civil society," Pietje Vervest, specialist in ASEM issues at the Transitional Institute (TNI), a Netherlands-based think thank for social movements told media representatives Tuesday.

"For ten years that ASEM has been in existence, it has largely been undemocratic, with no room for civil society participation, while providing a prominent role for the business sector," said Charles Santiago, director of Monitoring Sustainable Globalisation, a Malaysia-based advocacy group.

ASEM comprises the 25 member states of the European Union, the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU), and the 10 member countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). These are Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. China, Japan and South Korea will also be represented.

This year's summit marks the tenth anniversary of ASEM, set up as an institutional framework for Asia and Europe to engage with one another on economic and business issues.

But critics of ASEM say it serves as a platform for the European Union to pursue its economic interests in Asia to counter U.S. influence through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

"All external relations of the European Union are highly defined by economic interests, even though in the Maastricht Treaty it was said that its external policy should be in line with its development policy," Vervest told IPS. "But it doesn't happen in the case of ASEM."

Civil society members blame the Asian members of ASEM for the failure to include civil society.

"The democratic process in many Asian countries is weak, and governments have been opposed to issues such as human rights and corruption being raised in international forums", Santiago told IPS.

At the 2004 ASEM summit in Vietnam, the government prevented an alternative forum being held close to the dates of the official forum. But European governments are unequally unwilling to bring NGOs into the official ASEM process by hiding behind the Asian countries, the organisers said.

The call for broader civil society participation has been supported by a study commissioned by the Finnish government, and carried out by the Japan Centre for International Exchange and the University of Helsinki Network for European Studies.

"In order to develop ASEM into a democratic participatory process, its role and function vis-á-vis civil society needs to be clarified. Bottom-up initiatives such as the Asia-Europe People's Forum should be welcomed and harnessed," the study says.

While governments are trying to keep AEPF at arm's length, some are still willing to fund it. Finland has provided 300,000 euros for the forum. South Korea earlier contributed 400,000 euros.