Foreign Minister U Nyan Win (front row right) joins his counterparts from 45 nations at a meeting of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) grouping in Hamburg last week. The meeting included discussions about providing health and education assistance to Myanmar, as well as conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and global issues, including energy, climate change and the fight against terrorism.

THE Foreign Minister, U Nyan Win, joined his counterparts from 45 nations at a meeting of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) grouping in Hamburg last week.

It was U Nyan Win’s third trip to Europe in eight months to attend meetings involving members of the European Union.

U Nyan Win travelled to Nuremberg in January to attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member.

Last September he travelled to Helsinki to attend a summit of ASEM, which comprises 29 European Union nations, the 10 ASEAN members, as well as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. The European Commission and the ASEAN Secretariat are also ASEM members.

“From 2007, the European Commission (EU’s executive wing) will expend assistance in areas of health and education,” the source said.

The EU has already contributed 20 million euros (about US$27 million) towards the Three Diseases Fund, which was launched earlier this year to help Myanmar fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The EU is also known to be holding talks with the Myanmar government on launching an education assistance program for university students.

Myanmar joined ASEM in 2004. The grouping was formed in 1996 by the EU, ASEAN and China, Japan and South Korea to promote dialogue on political, security and economic issues.

The Hamburg meeting was the grouping’s first since India, Pakistan and Mongolia on the Asian side, and new EU members, Bulgaria and Romania, joined ASEM late last- year.

“In Hamburg the ASEM members agreed to intensify regional cooperation on global issues and in resolving international conflicts,” the May 29 statement said.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting the German Foreign Minister, Mr Frank-Walter Steinmeier, stressed that ASEM has developed as an influential voice in the world.

“This is a level of influence that we can and should use to an even greater degree in international politics,” said Mr Steinmeier, who chaired the meeting.
“We therefore also intend to draw regional fora such as ASEM more to reach common solution for the problems that confront us,” he said.

The ASEM foreign ministers also discussed the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, and global issues, including energy, climate change and the struggle against terrorism.

A senior German political analyst said ASEM was the most important forum for promoting Asia-Europe relations.

“Precisely because ASEM offers the opportunity for a free and frank dialogue and exchange of views among leaders, ministers and senior officials of both regions, ASEM is an important instrument of Asian-European relations,” Dr Sebastian Bersick, a senior research associate with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, said in an email to The Myanmar Times on May 23.

“It enables big and small countries to identify and discuss issues of common concern in a multilateral and, if they wish, also bilateral format,” he said.

Dr Bersick said ASEM will have a pivotal role to play ASEAN as the regional grouping moves to transform itself into a community by 2015.

“It now depends on the ASEAN countries and their leaders’ political will whether ASEAN can serve the function of the ‘engine’ of Asia-Europe relations and of the ASEM process,” he said.

“For that to happen ASEAN will have to successfully push forward its integration agenda, eg the ASEAN Charter and the acceleration of the implementation of the ASEAN Community.

“At the same time, the development of East Asian regionalism and the interests of emerging powers like China and India, but also of Japan, in regional decision-making will decide the future of ASEM. In this respect ASEAN plays an important role as well.

“The more integrated ASEAN becomes the more important it will be for the countries in Asia to cooperate with ASEAN countries on an equal footing,” said Dr Bersick.