An EU–ASEAN FTA: The EU’s Failures as an International Actor

Abstract: The relative speed and ease with which the EU and ASEAN reached an agreement in 2007 to initiate negotiations for a free trade agreement may create the impression that this constituted a success for the EU’s Asia strategy. In reality, the launching of negotiations represented a series of failures for the EU. By 2007, neither of the two conditions the EU had a few years before set for such negotiations (a convergence between EU and ASEAN regulations and the successful conclusion of WTO negotiations) had been fulfilled. Moreover, the EU was compelled to accept the ASEAN format for negotiations implying the participation of Myanmar, at a time when repression in Myanmar had intensified and the EU had renewed its sanctions against the latter.