ASEAN is not aiming to become like the European Union even if it achieves economic integration by its target date of 2015, current group chairman Singapore said last week.

Foreign Minister George Yeo said the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations is too diverse to achieve the same degree of integration as the EU.

“ASEAN, however integrated, will not become a union like the EU. We are too diverse in our history, culture and economic development for this to be possible,” Mr Yeo told parliament.

“The EU has a European court and European parliament which legislate on behalf of the whole union. We do not anticipate such development for ASEAN.”
The EU also has a single currency, the euro.

Mr Yeo, whose country assumed the rotating ASEAN chair from the Philippines in July, said that ASEAN leaders have recognised the reality of the region’s diversity and agreed that the pace of integration should not be set by the region’s poorest members.

“Let’s move quickly where we can in a practical way. Members who are ready to move first in particular areas should be free to do so provided the door is left open for others to join when they are ready,” the foreign minister said.

ASEAN aims to establish a single market and manufacturing base by 2015 through cutting trade barriers and opening up economies. The group’s membership ranges from wealthy Singapore to impoverished Laos and Cambodia.

It is also politically diverse, with democracies such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, an Islamic monarchy – Brunei – the Buddhist-majority kingdom of Thailand, communist Vietnam and military-ruled Myanmar.

Mr Yeo said an ASEAN charter is now at the “advance stage” of its drafting process and should be ready for submission to the leaders at their November summit in Singapore.

The charter is expected to make ASEAN a rules-based organisation in contrast to its current state, where decisions are made through the cumbersome process of consensus. – AFP