"This mission is aimed at improving our cooperation and to work more deeply with the ASEAN since our legal engagement is extremely high. It continues in the same way as the region grows," EU Ambassador to the ASEAN Francisco Fontan Pardo noted at a press conference here on Tuesday.
As the second-largest trade partner and biggest investor, the EU is supporting ASEANs integration efforts and the establishment of a single market, which came into effect at the end of 2015.
The EU is also ASEANs major development partner and the biggest donor to the ASEAN Secretariat.
ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh lauded EUs mission, which will be beneficial towards achieving ASEAN regional prosperity, stability, and security in addition to creating new cooperation to overcome regional and global challenges.
"The ASEAN always considers the EU as one of the most important partners. As we advance to the next phase of our partnership, in which the ASEAN Charter will be focusing on raising the ASEAN Community 2025, we look forward to receiving continuous support for the EU to strengthen our vision," he stated.
Minh expressed confidence that the establishment of the EU Mission to ASEAN would contribute to enhancing EU-ASEAN cooperation with several concrete steps being implemented.
In line with Minhs statement, Director of ASEAN Dialogue Partnerships of Indonesias Foreign Ministry Derry Aman also welcomed the EU mission.
Aman is also looking forward to further discussions on strategic partnership between the ASEAN and EU to be accomplished soon.
To support the ASEAN integration and the ASEAN Secretariat, the EU will provide over 170 million Euros for the 2014-2020 period, an increase of 100 million Euros from that allocated for the 2007-2013 period.
Despite covering economic projects, the EU also works on strengthening collaboration on climate change and initiating a new, dedicated EU-ASEAN policy dialog on environment and sustainable development.
Some areas that would be of key concern to the mission are maritime security, disaster management and crisis response, transnational crimes, training courses on preventive diplomacy, crisis management, mediation, the rule of law, and election observation.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
Copyright © ANTARA 2016
