Today (15 March), the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN and the European Union adopted the Nuremberg Declaration at the 16th ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting in Nuremberg. After 30 years of good relations, it is the political signal for closer cooperation in all spheres. Core areas will include intensive political and security policy cooperation, the expansion of trade and economic relations and close interaction on fundamental global issues, such as energy and the environment.
At the final press conference, attended by the two Co-Chairmen, the Foreign Ministers of Cambodia and the Federal Republic of Germany, the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, the EU Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and the ASEAN Secretary-General, Ong Keng Yong, Federal Foreign Minister Steinmeier therefore set the tone right at the start. "No trace of fatigue, our partnership is coming into its prime – and has a great future ahead of it. For we bear joint responsibility in resolving many international problems, and we need one another more than ever before."
Steinmeier continued, "We Europeans and the ASEAN states are ideal partners in this task, because hardly any other form of cooperation between states explicitly attaches so much importance to multilateral approaches in resolving international issues. Nowhere is this expressed more clearly than in the ground-breaking Nuremberg Declaration we have just jointly adopted."
From the EU's perspective, this cooperation has a strategic pivotal role. On the one hand, Europe no longer looks exclusively to Japan, China and India when it turns its eyes towards Asia. The 10 ASEAN states alone are home to 500 million people - more than in the EU. The ASEAN states are already an important hub in the Asia-Pacific region. Considerable potential remains untapped, with regard to both trade and political cooperation.
On the other hand, Europe is playing an increasingly prominent and significant role in this part of the world. The ASEAN states have basically taken the same direction as the EU and are themselves therefore looking to the Old Continent with growing interest.
In the Joint Co-Chairmen's Statement the ASEAN states welcome the European Union's planned accession to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC). The EU and the ASEAN states also reiterated their intention to further intensify economic exchange and to engage in talks on free trade agreements in addition to the ongoing global trade talks.
Other topics covered during the in-depth consultations on current international issues included the situations in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan and developments in Myanmar.
This more intensive cooperation will find concrete expression in a joint plan of action, which is to be drafted before the end of this year if at all possible.
Text of the Nuremberg Declaration
Text of the Joint Co-Chairmen's Statement
Additional documents and fotos of the EU-ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting
