The recent agreement in Lisbon on the Reform Treaty marks the end of six years of debate on improving the workings of European Union (EU) institutions in order to help it meet the challenges of the 21st century. The EU has developed so much over the recent decades, not least expanding to 27 member-states at the beginning of 2007, and there is now an urgent need to modernize the way we do business both inside and outside the Union.

Not surprisingly, therefore, developments in Asean, especially the Charter, are watched with great interest in Europe. Asean faces many comparable institutional, organizational and political challenges as it proceeds on its own integration path. In this respect, the European experience, while certainly not replicable, can nevertheless offer some inspiration. I am certainly not alone in Europe in wishing Asean well in its efforts to build the planned Economic, Security and Sociocultural Communities in the coming decade.

Relations between the Union and Asean have developed well over the past few years. Our bilateral trade and investment links are strong and growing. Asean is already a more important trading partner for the EU than Japan, South Korea or India. The EU and China each account for about 11 percent of Asean’s total trade.  FDI flows of the EU to Asean in recent years have been larger than to other Asian partners.  Our development cooperation is large: we have committed €1.25 billion for development cooperation with Southeast Asian countries. Our financial assistance for regional integration and capacity building has been stepped up to €10 million a year. Moreover, the members of the European Union and Asean are small- and medium-sized countries that have a natural instinct to work together, to find consensus and to rely on the multilateral-rule system to address global issues of concern. A natural consequence of this is that the foreign-policy positions of the Union and Asean increasingly converge on many international issues like the Middle East peace process and on global challenges like nonproliferation and climate change.

In addition, the decision to enter into free-trade agreement (FTA) negotiations confirms our shared desire to realize the full potential of our economic relations through comprehensive bilateral trade and investment liberalization, complementing the WTO.

The EU’s active participation in the Asean Regional Forum and our successful collaboration in the Aceh Monitoring Mission demonstrated the potential for political cooperation and opened new avenues for our partnership. For instance, we strongly support the efforts of the government of the Philippines to achieve a comprehensive peace settlement in Mindanao, and the efforts of the Thai authorities to resolve the unrest in southern Thailand. Our European troops are proud to serve alongside Indonesian and Malaysian contingents in Lebanon. I also congratulate Vietnam on its nomination as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, and EU members look forward to working with Vietnam to address global security issues.

It is, therefore, right and fitting for the European Union and Asean to celebrate 30 years of formal relations at a special summit in Singapore this November. I earnestly hope that this summit will not be only a celebration of past achievements, but will also give a new impetus to developing our relations even more in the future.

The EU supports Asean’s efforts toward greater regional integration because Europe has learned from its own history that greater integration is the best guarantee of stability and prosperity. I firmly believe that a strong and united Asean will lead to a safe and balanced future in the wider region of East Asia. When I meet Asean leaders I will give them the message that Europe will actively support their efforts to build an Asean Community.

Asean deserves praise for the adoption of the Charter that I hope will give greater coherence to the process of Asean integration, as well as confirm Asean’s commitment to the principles of protection and promotion of human rights, and to democracy. The latter is all the more imperative following the sad events in Burma/Myanmar. The EU has a strong interest that Burma/Myanmar develops into a democratic and prosperous society. We strongly support international efforts, led by UN special envoy Gambari, to launch a peaceful dialogue between the government and the opposition within Burma/Myanmar, and we stand ready to support materially a peaceful transition to a legitimate civilian government.

The EU and Asean are important trading partners. The EU is currently Asean’s second-largest trading partner. Asean as a whole is the EU’s fifth- largest overall trading partner. These figures not only reveal the weight of our existing economic relationship but also point to the potential to develop it. Further liberalization of bilateral trade and investment will bring substantial benefits to our societies. We should use the momentum of the launch of EU-Asean FTA negotiations and aim at a swift conclusion of a far-reaching and comprehensive free-trade agreement. Economic studies and analyses have indicated that a low-ambition, narrow agreement would not deliver the same benefits as the comprehensive agreement we have in mind. This is why we must remain ambitious, as we agreed to be when launching the negotiations.

Our initiative to join the Asean Treaty of Amity and Cooperation is a clear manifestation of our will to increase the EU’s political engagement with Southeast Asia. There are significant benefits for both the EU and Asean through a greater European political presence in the region. We wish to increase our involvement in regional forums, including in the East Asia summit process.

EU and Asean leaders recognize the seriousness and urgency of the challenge of climate change and the need to take decisive and collective action. Negotiations on a comprehensive post-2012 agreement need to be launched at the upcoming UN Climate-Change Conference next month in Bali, Indonesia; the EU-Asean Summit presents an excellent opportunity to discuss this fundamental issue and to build diplomatic alliances to achieve our common goals.

Finally, we will continue to expand broad-based cooperation initiatives in the political, security, economic, environmental, energy and sociocultural fields, through implementation of the Joint Plan of Action and its endorsement at the EU-Asean Commemorative Summit.

I, therefore, hope the EU-Asean Summit will not only celebrate our achievements, but will also gear up the political, diplomatic and bureaucratic machinery on both sides to exploit the full potential of our unique relationship. Present and future generations of Europeans and Southeast Asians stand to gain.

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The Licensing Executives Society (LES) Philippines, the local society of LES International, the preeminent global association of professionals engaged in the licensing and commercialization of intellectual-property rights, recently held a forum to explore the question of whether or not the Philippines has what it takes to establish its own version of Silicon Valley.

It is a fascinating situation that “experts” have such a difficult time figuring out the Philippine economy. What is it that makes our social/economic environment so far outside the conventional wisdom of analysts who observe our economy?

Mirror on the wall: Comprehensive tax reform a failure from the very start 

Not quite a long time ago, a previous administration, upon the suggestion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), passed the Comprehensive Tax-Reform Program (CTRP) to impose what then-Finance Secretary Jesus Estanislao called sin taxes on liquors and cigarettes.

Many industrialized countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan and South Korea are now faced with the phenomenon of aging Baby Boomers.  These Baby Boomers, who created much of the wealth of the West in the last four decades, are hitting their retirement age. 

‘That dollar isn’t funny anymore.’’ That’s how economist Stephen Green and his colleagues at Standard Chartered Bank titled a recent report, and their observation was as spot on as any.

The recent agreement in Lisbon on the Reform Treaty marks the end of six years of debate on improving the workings of European Union (EU) institutions in order to help it meet the challenges of the 21st century. The EU has developed so much over the recent decades, not least expanding to 27 member-states at the beginning of 2007, and there is now an urgent need to modernize the way we do business both inside and outside the Union.