WSJ.com - Asia-Europe Summit Focuses on Trade

リンク: WSJ.com - Asia-Europe Summit Focuses on Trade.

Asia-Europe Summit
Focuses on Trade

Associated Press
September 10, 2006 7:58 a.m.

HELSINKI, Finland -- Leaders from 38 European and Asian countries began two days of economic and political talks Sunday, hoping to reaffirm their decade-old goal of providing a counterbalance to U.S. clout in Asia.

The leaders of ASEM, or Asia-Europe Meeting, will focus on improving trade relations and possibly launching a drive for bilateral, free trade accords, after negotiations for a global agreement collapsed in July amid acrimony over complex market access and farm subsidies issues.

Before the meeting, officials said the two sides had agreed to admit India, Pakistan and Mongolia into the club. The EU says each time it admits new members -- as it did in 2004 when Cyprus, Malta and eight East European nations joined -- they must automatically join the Asia-Europe partnership. Asians fear this automatic ASEM membership gives Europeans too big a say.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso suggested the EU was ready to pursue a free trade agreement with South Korea, now that WTO negotiations have stalled. The EU has strong trade ties with Japan, China and South Korea, the three Asian economic powers. In the past decade, EU trade with Japan and South Korea grew by double digit figures, while trade with China has skyrocketed.

EU exports to China have more than doubled to €48 billion ($61.5 billion), and imports have more than tripled €127 billion between 1995 and 2004. But Europe's trade with Southeast Asia, which comprises the majority of Asia's ASEM members, has been stagnant. Over the past 10 years, Southeast Asia's share of all EU exports fell by 1.2%, and European investment in the region has declined.

The summit will debate globalization, security threats, energy, cultural ties and competitiveness. A declaration on climate change is planned as well. North Korea and Iran nuclear ambitions will likely dominate political discussions.

Before the Helsinki summit, the European Union met with the leaders of South Korea and China, who are major trade partners for the Europeans and, with Japan, are key players in efforts to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear arms.

The Europeans want Asian governments -- notably in China and Southeast Asia -- to do more to protect human rights, but the Asians say the issue has no place in economic and trade discussions, and are internal matters of those states.