EU-ASEAN Youth Camp for Sustainable Development Officially Launched

The EU-ASEAN Youth Camp, held between 17-23 August 2017, is organized by the Thai MFA to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of EU-ASEAN relations, and to highlight Thailand’s role as both the EU country coordinator as well as the ASEAN coordinator for sustainable development. For the youth camp, 38 participants have been chosen, whereof 15 participants from the EU, representing 11 EUMS. The programme consists of seminars and study visits on the subjects of sustainable development, sufficiency economy and intercultural dialogue. At the launch, Mr. Vitavas shared that he saw the youth camp as a platform for exchanging views on regional integration and the youths role in reaching the SDGs of Agenda 2030. He also highlighted how the relation between the EU and ASEAN has developed from technical and development assistance to partnership on many more fields such as maritime security and people to people connectivity.  Noting the fourfold anniversaries of 2017 (60th anniversary of the Rome Treaty, 50th Anniversary of ASEAN, 40th Anniversary of EU-ASEAN relations and 30th Anniversary of the Erasmus programme), Ms Luisa Ragher also emphasized the many fields of co-operations between the two regional organizations, such as CATA, a possible future region to region FTA, the HLDs on maritime security, sustainable development and on the future developments of EU - ASEAN relations.