PEACE-MAKER
As our modest contribution in strengthening partnership and linkages between Asia and Europe, we in the 350-member International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) together with the European People’s Party (EPP), European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR), and Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) launched in Seoul in July 2017 the Asian Europe Political Forum (AEPF).
We are confident that the AEPF will serve as a meaningful platform connecting Asia and Europe, thus becoming another major channel between the two regions, next to the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM), which boasts its history of more than 25 years.
Since its inaugural meeting in the South Korean capital in 2017, three consecutive meetings of AEPF on issues of common interest have been held – in London, 2018; in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2019; and in Prague, 2022.
The fifth gathering will be held in Kathmandu, Nepal this October.
At the Prague meeting, we the leaders of political parties of Asia and Europe declared that “the AEPF provides its members with opportunities to discuss matters of mutual interest and concern, reaffirm shared objectives, and to promote further collaboration. The geopolitical reality of multipolar world makes further engagement of partnership between Europe and Asia even more important and urgent in order to diversify trade relations, to deepen our cooperation on critical and emerging technologies, digital issues, and raw materials, to strengthen supply chains resilience and help tackle global challenges.
“We agreed to take the lessons from the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical and geoeconomic shift, global security challenges to turn them into opportunities to build more inclusive and sustainable cooperation between Asia and Europe in the fields of health, security, green transition, transportation, and human network. We agreed that the cooperation between Asia and Europe would be a necessary foundation for encouraging cooperation, contributing significantly to shaping major trends, ensuring a peaceful and stable international environment, and pioneering the promotion of sustainable, inclusive development and prosperity.
“As trading partners,the Asian countries to EU member states account for 36 percent of EU annual international trade in goods, which highlights the mutual strategic importance to each other. We reflected on possible ways of modernizing and upgrading existing trade and investment agreements between Europe and Asia, we called for substantive progress on trade negotiations in progress and reiterated importance of enhanced and multifaceted cooperation between EU-ASEAN and its MS, new EU-CPTTP strategic approach and evaluated economic and geopolitical implications of RCEP. We stressed the role of political parties in such efforts to realize the economic potential and to ensure better market access on both continents. We need to further deepen inter-regional economic integration while promoting inter-regional supply chain resilience. Greater economic interdependence leads to a more stable and peaceful world. In this connection, we would suggest that ASEAN and the EU resume FTA negotiation.
“We need to further enhance cultural cooperation and people-to-people exchange between the two regions. Cultural diplomacy can be a solution to international conflicts and tensions. Culture is a source of mutual understanding and respect, and trust building. Culture provides significant entry point for dialogue and trust building between conflicting parties.
“We affirmed that the safety, security, and environmental sustainability of EU-Asia transport networks should be guaranteed, since it is essential to the supply chain for goods between Asia and Europe. We welcomed the cooperation between the EU and Asia to work closely with each other to encourage and improve their connectivity.”
Indeed, as we repeatedly pointed out in this column, there will be a great need for transnational, transcultural groupings since the problems that face us transcend national, regional, and even hemispheric boundaries.