Market Update: EU ‘not engaged enough’ in Southeast Asia, says business chief – Full Analysis

The European Commission is failing to build sufficient diplomatic and commercial ties with Southeast Asia, an EU business group has warned, as Washington, Beijing, and Moscow scramble for influence in the geopolitically crucial region.

Chris Humphrey, executive director of the EU-ASEAN Business Council, told Euractiv that senior EU officials have failed to attend recent ministerial gatherings of the ASEAN bloc, an 11-country group of rapidly growing economies that includes Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

This lack of engagement, he said, contrasts starkly with a push by the US, China, and Russia to bolster political and economic links with ASEAN, at a time when the Washington-Beijing rivalry is leading many Southeast Asian countries to look to strengthen ties with Europe.

“We’re not turning up at the ministerial meetings when others are turning up, and it gets noticed and gets commented on,” said Humphrey, whose Singapore-based group represents EU firms operating across the ASEAN bloc.

“ASEAN wants Europe to stand up more, because they’ve been pushed into a choice between the US and China,” he added. “They want other options, and they see Europe as an option.”

Humphrey pointed to a meeting of ASEAN digital ministers in Vietnam in January, which was attended by senior representatives from Washington, Beijing, and Moscow – but not Brussels.

“It’s a geopolitical play by the US, by the Russians, by the Chinese,” he said, adding that Beijing now sends top officials to “almost every” ASEAN ministerial meeting. “Europe’s just not interested,” he said.

Founded as a non-aligned bloc of five developing countries at the height of the Cold War in 1967, ASEAN’s nearly €3.5 trillion in total annual output means it now collectively amounts to the world’s fourth-largest economy. The EU is ASEAN’s third-largest trading partner, after the US and China.

Humphrey’s comments come amid a push by Brussels to deepen trade links with ASEAN members as a hedge against US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and trade frictions with China, whose export-dependent growth model is a deep source of tension with Brussels.

Over the past year, the Commission has inked a trade deal with Indonesia, the most populous ASEAN country. The EU executive has also concluded trade pacts with non-ASEAN regional powers, including India and, earlier this week, Australia.

Brussels is expected to sign trade agreements with multiple ASEAN countries, including the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, over the next year and a half, Maroš Šefčovič, the EU trade commissioner, said on Monday.

Humphrey welcomed the EU’s push to deepen trade links but said EU cooperation with ASEAN should be expanded to include security, energy, critical minerals, health, and financial and digital services.

The EU and ASEAN “believe in the same things”, he said. “They both believe in a rules-based trading order. They both believe in free trade… We’re natural bedfellows in so many different [ways]… so we should be working better and smarter together than we currently are.”

(bw, mm)