ASEAN: Opening Remarks by High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas at the EU-ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference and the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting
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Excellencies, Your Royal Highness,
Let me first thank Philippines for their warm welcome here.
This is my second visit to the region in twelve weeks, and I am glad to see the EU's relationship with ASEAN deepening — in words, but also increasingly in deeds.
The EU has long been a reliable partner to ASEAN. It is now becoming an increasingly active one, and this will only increase as our partnership grows.
This is the message I carried to Brunei last April. There, together, we reaffirmed that it is time to elevate our partnership to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership level.
Following that meeting, I shared a Concept Note for a Commemorative Summit with the Foreign Ministers of Brunei, the Philippines and Singapore, and with all EU Member States, to help chart the path there together.
We have already shown what an upgrade can mean in practice, and we are about to show it again. Earlier this year, we raised our bilateral ties with Vietnam to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership — the first with an ASEAN Member State.
In a couple of days, here in Manila, we will adopt the upgrade of EU-Philippines relations; in the autumn, we are planning to adopt the upgrade of EU-Indonesia relations.
Three bilateral upgrades within months of each other are not just a coincidence. They are a signal of intent, and they are built directly on the practical cooperation we all discussed in Brunei in late April.
We now want to build on this momentum at the regional level, working towards the EU-ASEAN Commemorative Summit that Singapore will host in 2027, as we mark fifty years of EU-ASEAN relationship.
This is not a standing start.
Building on the Concept Note we have already shared, and a non-paper I shared with my co-chair, our joint task now is to translate the ambition into a substantive plan with concrete deliverables, in time for the ASEAN Summit in mid-November.
The initiative on these deliverables will have to come from the EU; but as true partners, we would encourage you to shape them with us now, and to bring your own priorities to the table, so that this upgrade becomes a success for both our regions.
Because the situation demands it.
Conflict in the Middle East has thrown global energy markets into disarray, and the consequences will outlast the headlines. Every economy feels this, but few as sharply as Southeast Asia.
What is being called the four F's — food, fuel, fertilizer, freight — are all climbing at once, dragging inflation up and growth down with them. And the dire situation in Gaza merits all our support.
At the same time, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, hollowing out the principles of the UN Charter was built to protect. But we will stand by Ukraine, united and in solidarity for as long as it takes.
We see with clear eyes that Russia is an existential threat for our countries in Europe.
We are already faced with Russia’s hybrid actions and therefore determined to increase our defence readiness. I ask you to join our calls to Russia to stop the killing in Ukraine and engage in talks genuinely, to reach a ceasefire and then a just and lasting peace.
It is exactly at moments like this that partnerships like ours stop being a nice-to-have and become essential. This is how we turn ambition into results worth celebrating next year, when we raise our relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership — stable, predictable, reliable, and delivering to our people in every area that counts.
Thank you.
Link to the video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/media/video/I-292782