Lizza Bomassi and Elina Noor explore the nature and future of the partnership between Europe and Southeast Asia.
Relations with Southeast Asia are critical to Europe’s clout in the Indo-Pacific. Investment, supply chains, visa regulations, and data protection are among the factors influencing EU-ASEAN ties.
Lizza Bomassi, deputy Director of Carnegie Europe, and Elina Noor, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, assess Europe’s relations with Southeast Asia and discuss where this partnership is headed.
[00:00:00] Intro, [00:01:14] Europe’s Relations with Southeast Asia, [00:10:50] Important Milestones [00:22:24] Where Is the Relationship Headed?
Lizza Bomassi, July 4, 2023, “Reimagining EU-ASEAN Relations: Challenges and Opportunities,” Carnegie Europe.
Lizza Bomassi, December 13, 2022, “A Missed Opportunity on the EU-ASEAN Summit,” Carnegie Europe.
Rosa Balfour, Lizza Bomassi, Marta Martinelli, June 29, 2022, “The Southern Mirror: Reflections on Europe From the Global South,” Carnegie Europe.
Lizza Bomassi, November 24, 2021, “The Asia-Europe Meeting and the Case for Minilateralism,” Carnegie Europe.
Elina Noor, “ASEAN Can Shape Its Digital Order,” Lowy Institute.
Elina Noor, April 2020, “Positioning ASEAN in Cyberspace”, Asia Policy, Vol. 15, No. 2.
Lizza Bomassi
The Indo-Pacific. One of the world's most dynamic places, where national interests vie between strategic chokepoints and vital resource-rich seaways. At the heart of this vast region lies Southeast Asia, which plays a central role in the geopolitical and economic dynamics of this part of the world. Despite its geographic distance, Southeast Asia is increasingly important for Europe. It is home to some crucial supply chains for European producers, from rubber to palm oil, and is birthing rising powers in the global south, like Indonesia and Malaysia. It is also a prime theater of confrontation between the US and China. But what does this partnership between Europe and Southeast Asia really look like? And where is it headed? And can Southeast Asia be a springboard for Europe to play a bigger global role?
Lizza Bomassi
Hello, and welcome to Europe Inside Out, Carnegie Europe's monthly podcast about the continent's greatest foreign policy challenges. My name is Lizza Bomassi, and I'm the deputy director of Carnegie Europe.
Lizza Bomassi
This episode of Europe Inside Out is about Europe's role in the Indo-Pacific and specifically its relations with Southeast Asian nations. I'm joined by Elina Noor, a Senior Fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focuses on developments in Southeast Asia, particularly the impact and implications of technology in reshaping, power dynamics, governance, and nation building. Elina also co-hosts a bi weekly podcast called Southeast Asia Radio, which I highly recommend you check out.
Lizza Bomassi
Hey, Elina, it's good to see you.
Elina Noor
Good to see you, Lizza.
Lizza Bomassi
I think most people, when they think about Europe and Southeast Asian relations, especially in the field of foreign policy, it's primarily about economics and trade because obviously it conditions the terms of the engagement and the relationship. I mean, Europe is one of Southeast Asia's largest trading partners. Foreign direct investment is also very high. We did a study a couple of months ago. And contrary to popular belief, we actually found that China's investment has been consistently less than that of the EU and of course, the other two big economic power weights in the region, the US and Japan. But what's the view from Washington? What do you think of this?
Elina Noor
It's funny you ask, because I think there's very little discussion about EU-ASEAN relations in Washington, right? And it's mainly been a bilateral focus from within Southeast Asian capitals looking out to Europe, and vice versa from European capitals out to Southeast Asia. So very little discussion in Washington. And you mentioned investment, Lizza, which I think has been a staple of the bilateral relationship between the EU and ASEAN. But not to rain down on the EU-ASEAN parade, I think in terms of trade, it's been a little stagnant over the past decade. There has been some growth that has really been quite minimal when compared to, for example, the boom in trade between China and ASEAN.
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah, I mean, part of the reason why I think we've seen that is also because the EU tends to tie some of its economic engagements with the human rights and democracy agenda. And Southeast Asia has, like, a very big plurality of political systems, right? You've got maybe Cambodia on one end of the spectrum, and then you've got Singapore on the other, so ... And it's funny because the EU has managed to negotiate free trade agreements with Vietnam and Singapore, but basically has stalled with all of the other bilateral ones. Because one of the issues I think they put on the agenda is the fact that the human rights record in some of the ASEAN countries is very poor. I was actually in Seoul for the Democracy Forum in March, and what I noticed is there's a lot of misunderstanding in terms of why we tie so much of that conditionality on the economic relationship.
Elina Noor
I think that's a really important point, and I remember this having been in the region when I was working there, that the discourse on human rights and democracy was always very closely tied with all aspects of the EU relationship with ASEAN. But I think from a Southeast Asian perspective, and of course, not all of Southeast Asia shares my perspective, I think this coloration of the relationship has really affected not just the reality, but also long term perceptions, rather, of Southeast Asians towards Europe and European engagement. And there's always caution about how European approaches, even now, are going to play out in real time because of this legacy of the human rights conversation underpinning all aspects of the relationship.
Lizza Bomassi
No, absolutely. And I think that's a great segue into another point, which I wanted to touch on here, is actually how Southeast Asians view the relationship. Now, you know this, but every year there's a think tank in Singapore that conducts a "State of Southeast Asia" survey. And so they go around asking Southeast Asians how they view ASEAN and what their biggest concerns are. And I think last year 80% of Southeast Asians felt that ASEAN was slow and ineffective. And I think by inference, you could sort of say, well: does that mean that they want more integration? But there's so many issues related to that. I mean, first of all, within ASEAN, there's this principled stance of non-interference whereas if you wanted to integrate more, especially with your foreign policy, you have to sort of give. There's this give and take, which I just don't feel ASEAN is ready for. What do you think?
Elina Noor
Yeah, not on the political foreign policy security front, definitely not. But I think there has been tremendous give and take within ASEAN on the economic front.
Lizza Bomassi
Absolutely.
Elina Noor
And you see that most recently with what I find to be a pretty incredible development. The idea that countries in Southeast Asia will be able to transact commercially with each other in their local currencies, which I think is a huge development. You would never see an equivalent of this in the political security realm, but the fact that you can now buy and sell goods across the border with your own currency without having to go through a third currency, whether it's the Dollar, or the Yuan, or the Euro, is pretty amazing to me.
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah. And that's a huge development. I mean, that was years in the making, and I think we don't make enough sounds about that. How important it is that Southeast Asia has managed to make this happen.
Elina Noor
Yeah.
Lizza Bomassi
The other thing that I wanted to talk about in the context of how Southeast Asians view Europe but not just Europe, I guess other players as well, obviously, there's China, there's the US. But if I've been watching the media correctly, Russia has also been on the charm offensive in Southeast Asia, hasn't it?
Elina Noor
Yeah, it's funny because I remember maybe about a decade ago, Russia was trying to be this active player and a significant one in the region, but it never got to that level that it was hoping to. And now, unfortunately, it's come to the radar for probably all the wrong reasons. That notwithstanding, you see at the UN, for example, still some wariness about really coming out in strong support for Ukraine in UN votes, among some Southeast Asian countries. And I think what we've come to - within Southeast Asia - is the idea that there are some Southeast Asian countries who have decided that they'll be more forward leaning on the Russia-Ukraine issue, than others. And this is reflected in individual positions, individual country positions rather than a collective ASEAN position. What's the view from Brussels on how Southeast Asians are viewing the Ukraine crisis? And has there been disappointment in Brussels?
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah, I think you've really hit the nail on the head there with that one. Because I think in the immediate aftermath of this, there was obviously a lot of expectation. Because, you know, the EU is still, as we said earlier, a huge economic power in the region. So I guess the quid pro quo expectation was that you're going to be on side with us and that hasn't - or, you know, Singapore - that hasn't really been the case. And so you've had a mixed reaction from the EU, where on the one side it's almost sort of complete incomprehension. Like: how can you not understand that this is so important and that you should be - it's like it's just a question of right and wrong. It is black and white. There are no gray zones. But it can also be almost this sort of moral exasperation, which is very bad because obviously the Southeast Asians will not take that well because they have seen years of probably, you know, the US - and also some EU member states - taking on their brand of vigilante justice, I think is what we'd call it. So I think we're not quite there yet.
Elina Noor
Yeah, and your term - vigilante justice - you know, that really stood out to me. And I think it circles back to what we started out our conversation with, which is this moral underpinning of the relationship between the EU and ASEAN. Now, there's this moral outreach again from Europe, and perhaps rightly so in this case, towards the reactions or lack of reactions from Southeast Asian countries in the way that European capitals expected. And there is a real disconnect here, I think, still in terms of how each bloc perceives the other and the expectations that come out from the different capitals of these two regions, which is really unfortunate. I don't know if that's a bridge that's ever going to be crossed, but I think in this case, there are nuances from Southeast Asian capitals on their positions, you know, and so on. Some have voted in a different way on a point of technicality, for example, procedural technicality in the UN, which is not often translated in media reports. That was the case for Malaysia with the UN Human Rights Council vote, for example. And others have abstained or voted a different way for different strategic reasons. And I think these shades of gray, again, in the different positions that Southeast Asian countries have taken may not, unfortunately, ever get across in Brussels or throughout different European capitals.
Lizza Bomassi
So one of the things that I was thinking about as I was preparing for our discussion was to think about the important milestones in the relationship and what have been the difficult issues, at least in the recent past. And I think one way of looking at it specifically is probably to frame the relationship in terms of how the EU and ASEAN actually have worked together. Now, this is a relationship that has been operational for the past 45 years. So we're coming up to half a century of diplomatic ties, and in 2020, we signed this strategic partnership. And obviously the EU is not the only bloc that the ASEANs have a strategic partnership with. They have one with the United States. And for me, the period when we did that, it was actually a lot about the symbolism. Because I don't know if we've really added anything new to the relationship per se. We made a lot of noise about this new comprehensive air travel agreement, which is known as CATA, but I feel there's still a long way to go. I was actually in the Philippines just as the deal was sort of signed, or at least came into symbolic effect. And I remember President Marcos at the time making a lot of grandstanding about it. Like, this is great for us because it's going to open up so many new avenues of cooperation, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, on a very personal level, actually, when you look at it - just one note - is like 7 out of 10 ASEANs still need to have visas to even enter the EU. And they can be a very complicated procedure, trying to get your visa.
Lizza Bomassi
And yet most Europeans can actually come to any of the ASEAN countries, and they have a visa on arrival. So it's very one sided. And I guess you could make the argument: "Yes, but the direction of travel has to be like that", because ASEAN is looking for the investment in tourism and what they bring. But I think it's just another one of those things to say: "Okay, this is great, but let's not get carried away".
Elina Noor
Yeah, that's a really important point, because travel logistics encompasses so much more than flights, right? And there is a huge imbalance in the ability to travel to Europe from Southeast Asia when it comes to visas, as you pointed out, but also how much it costs to even apply for these visas. And yeah, unfortunately, it's very one sided. I think it's a great idea in theory. There has to be more connectivity, there has to be better ability for each other to get to know our different cultures, our different languages, in fact. But really, if we're thinking in terms of benefits… Okay, so Southeast Asian countries may benefit more from the tourist dollars, for example. But what's in it other than that, especially if, with the EU's Global Gateway, the whole idea of sustainable development is going to play a bigger role in bilateral ties between both regions. So there's a bit of an irony here, because we all know that air travel results in huge releases of greenhouse gas emissions. And so is it going to entrench some of these inequities in the climate crisis? If there are going to be more flights from Europe to Southeast Asia, for example, and if the only gain is in terms of financial ones, then I think we have to relook at this relationship and some of the advantages that agreements like CATA are meant to bring to Southeast Asia.
Lizza Bomassi
Exactly, I mean speaking about CATA and the amount of emissions that go. Let's talk for a minute about Europe's Green Deal. So, you know, this is Europe's answer to the climate crisis. It's basically, I think, been perceived externally as a European solution “made for Europeans by Europeans”. And there have been a lot of directives and regulations that have come out of the European Green Deal. This is all related, obviously, to connectivity, the Global Gateway, et cetera. But I feel like with all the best intentions that have been put into this, there's still a lot of misunderstanding. But not just misunderstanding, but genuine resentment. I mean, you're from Malaysia and you could probably tell us a lot about what has happened between the EU and Malaysia with regards to this Palm Oil Directive, which has been part of the European Green Deal. And I think it's both Malaysia and Indonesia have been very much affected. But they actually took the EU to the WTO and filed a lawsuit against the EU for this, right?
Elina Noor
Right!
Lizza Bomassi
Can you explain a little bit to our listeners how we got to that point and how, actually acerbic it has been?
Elina Noor
Yeah, this whole dispute over palm oil and the sustainability of palm oil, particularly involving Malaysia and Indonesia as the biggest producers of palm oil in the world, has been going on for decades. I think, if I remember correctly, it stretches back to the ‘80s. And it doesn't seem to have come to any sort of mitigation or resolution, as you pointed out. It might have gotten worse, particularly with this whole emphasis on what sustainability really means. And here, I think, there is some blame to be assigned to Malaysia and Indonesia. Because, to be fair, we haven't done the best for the environment or for labor protection in our two countries. Well, I certainly don't want to speak for Indonesia. But as a Malaysian, I think we can do so much better with regards to those two aspects of palm oil production in Malaysia. And the government has been trying - there are civil society organizations that have been trying to force the government and private companies to do better. But the business imperatives, unfortunately, have been very much in favor of, for example, cheap labor. And the interpretation of what forest cover means has been very loosely defined. That said, however, I think both countries, Malaysia and Indonesia, have been going to great lengths to try to meet some of the requirements that Europe has been wanting of these two countries with regards to production. And the fact that both countries have been essentially bending over backwards in order to retain and gain greater market access to Europe, but continued to fail to do so, has led to this resentment that you pointed out, Lizza. Because it just seems as if it's very one sided. And Europe has been very staunch on what it expects and what it requires out of Malaysia and Indonesia without yielding. And so, unfortunately, what you now have is Malaysia and Indonesia turning to other markets which are bigger, more profitable, potentially in lieu of the European market.
Lizza Bomassi
Oh, exactly. And I think you pointed out that Indonesia and Malaysia have tried to come up with mechanisms in answer to the requirements by the EU. And in fact, if I'm not mistaken, there are local certification standards that have been proposed, but that have probably been rejected, is probably too strong of a word, but have certainly not made it through those guardrails. And this is not your area of predilection, Elina, but I'm curious: do you know if there have been discussions at the Malaysian and Indonesian level about what kind of diversification strategies they could deploy? Instead of having palm oil, maybe there are other areas that they could invest in? Or are we just not there yet? Because there are other takers for these products out there. I mean, I think it was China and Malaysia that just recently signed a huge agreement a couple of weeks ago for the Chinese to start buying Malaysian palm oil.
Elina Noor
Sure, yeah I mean, yeah. This is not my area of expertise at all, but I do know that Malaysia and Indonesia have been having talks about how to circumvent some of these EU restrictions in order to keep production and the market access going for both countries, for Malaysia and Indonesia. I don't know if any particular institution or formal mechanism will come of it, but as you pointed out, I think both Malaysia and Indonesia are looking not just to China, but also to India, for example, to expand their market access in those areas.
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah. And it seems to me now, with the EU being so inflexible, I mean: on the one hand, you can understand they have climate commitments that they need to meet, and it's important. But with this sort of level of inflexibility, you know, they're probably walking into another sort of mistake, in a way.
Elina Noor
Yeah. Well, I guess time will tell.
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah, exactly. We'll see where that goes.
Lizza Bomassi
I wanted to return back to an issue that we discussed earlier about these pendulum swings that we've seen in Southeast Asia. I mean, if you look at the history of the region and it's striking to me, this issue specifically, which is democracy and human rights. Because if you look at the pendulum swing that we've had in the region since the ‘80s. And then sort of now where we're standing and countries in the region which were previously - I wouldn't call them bastions of democracy, but we're certainly, at least from the view of the West we're going towards the right direction - are now swinging back towards more authoritarianism and shrinking space. But it's interesting because I find that civil society groups in those countries have become so nimble - not all of them - but at playing the system and at finding the spaces in which they can actually speak. And sometimes they get the airwaves and sometimes they don't. But they do make a difference. And so the EU chooses to engage with those civil society groups for very many reasons. And that's completely understandable, but at the same time, you know, it's sort of this double edged sword. By engaging with them then, do you not sort of delegitimize the entire process because these are the ones that are not, technically, speaking for the people. Let's leave Cambodia aside for a minute and not talk about that… What's the view from Southeast Asia? I mean, how do you see this issue?
Elina Noor
I mean, there's certainly demand-signals from civil society organizations to be heard and for Europe to be more engaged in the democratization process or the democracy process, depending on which country you have in mind. And so in a way, I think the EU is responding to some of those demand-signals, but it has to balance that relationship that it has with civil society actors, with the relationship with government, which is equally important, if not more so, in trying to get European views across. And that will actually have policy impact. So it's a tightrope that Europe has to walk. But at the same time, I think particularly in more vibrant societies in Southeast Asia, like the Philippines, like Indonesia, where there are civil society groups that are robust and that are really quite vocal on some issues, it's their way of saying: “Hey, we need some outside pressure in order to affect change, because this is part of democracy”. But again, it's a tricky balance, right, for both sides.
Lizza Bomassi
I think one of the reasons why I'm such a pro EU-ASEAN stronger relationship advocate is because I really do believe that multilateralism is the sort of last bastion against declining world order. And so you need to win hearts and minds, but we're so moving away from that direction. And probably the next important battleground on this is actually tech and cyber. Because in ASEAN right now, we're looking at three different sorts of systems that are out there, right? So they're still trying to decide which one to go with. But you have the EU system, which is very much regulatory based. You have the US system, which is very much corporate business based and then you have the Chinese system, which is very government based and ASEAN hasn't really sliced the cake yet in terms of deciding which way they're going to go. And I have a feeling we're going to end up with a hybrid system where bits and pieces of those three different models that are already out there will be taken. And then you'll have a fourth system, which is, I think, really not good for how we eventually are going to govern tech and cyber because we need to have one system even just for basic codes and standards. But again, I'm really curious to hear your impressions of this because this is your bread and butter issue.
Elina Noor
So I think the way the world is approaching it now is the cake is being sliced into many different pieces. And you pointed out four models. Not to get my analogies mixed up, but in Southeast Asia, there is very little leeway but to, for example, adhere to the GDPR in the EU. And that's seen as the gold standard of data protection and privacy. Now, does it work for all Southeast Asian countries equally? Does it work for even all EU countries equally? Is something of great debate because you can have a terminology that works in the EU but doesn't work in ASEAN. And that notwithstanding, there are jurisdictions in Southeast Asia that still have to plug and play the GDPR into their national legislation, because that's the way the world works. And actually countries like Malaysia and Singapore see the GDPR as something of value to add to their national legislation. It's a model that's already out there. It's pretty rigorous, it's comprehensive. China, is a completely different model. It has actually used some of the GDPR template in some of its legislation. It's just taken a consumerist approach in a slightly different way, in a more, I think, government nudge kind of way that China is known for. The US, some would say, has no model at all, right? Because it's so fragmented. There is no federal equivalent to the GDPR, for example. And so you have more progressive states like California, like Virginia, that have gone on to legislate their own particular bills that are different from other states in the US. And it's very confusing if you're in the US. And it depends on which state you're operating in. And so I think the fragmentation is a little more intense than it was.
And you're right, it doesn't bode very well for all layers of the ICT system that we operate on. In fact, there are real concerns among technologists and those on the technical side of the ICT ecosystem that are very concerned about fragmenting standards, technical standards, that is already beginning to take place now. And then at the sort of regulatory at the legal level, you have this fragmentation that we've been discussing. And I think at the policy level -, at the international policy level -, what you'll see is countries trying to decide what works best for them. And in Southeast Asia, I hope what that coheres into is some sort of consolidation at the ASEAN level of the different national approaches into a regional one that ASEAN countries together can bring to the international table and say: "Hey, this is what we agree on, this is what we'd like to see, and this is the governance template that we'd like to table for discussion".
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah, absolutely. Are you positive on the outlook for that?
Elina Noor
I am cautiously positive and optimistic because even countries like Vietnam - which are traditionally seen as closed in terms of its economic approach -, because Vietnam in particular is a part of the comprehensive and progressive CPTPP, it has obligations to the whole international trading system and its binding commitments within the CPTPP. So, it has loosened its laws slightly to accommodate for these international obligations. Indonesia, likewise, has loosened some of the interpretations of its laws. Indonesia and Vietnam are often seen as these bastions of data localization. But if I were a market size of Indonesia, I would really want to try to protect the data of my citizens from extraction, from exploitation of other larger corporate players in the world. And so I think you have to view things from the position of Jakarta or from Hanoi, instead of just saying "No, although data localisation is bad". There have been accommodations made by both Indonesia and Vietnam because they're very aware they're part of this international economic system.
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah, that's fascinating. And it's interesting that you mentioned the population issue, because, I mean, Southeast Asia is home to some of the world's most populous countries. So it is absolutely in the interest. And what I find heartening, even though GDPR is not my favorite topic, is that it's become seen as the gold standard. But I think because GDPR is now, what, five years old, the benefit of this is that there is actually lessons that can be learned. After the Directive came into effect, I think national jurisdictions, because how it works, is that each European country there's a National Data Protection Authority, which is then responsible for wherever that entity is located within the EU. They are responsible for enforcing it.
Lizza Bomassi
In many countries, there's this huge backlog because they just have not been able to keep up. But I think the silver lining in that situation, which is a bit of a quagmire, is that countries that are still trying to find the right path finder model, can actually learn from these past five years that the GDPR has been in effect.
Elina Noor
Yeah, I mean, even terms like consent, you know, "consent based approach", I know there have been some discussions even within the EU. But whether that really works in the EU context, let alone in a context like Southeast Asia, which has different legal traditions, different linguistic interpretations, different dialects, right? How do you translate consent in the context of GDPR in Southeast Asia to your auntie in a village in, I don't know, somewhere remote - and pick your country in Southeast Asia.
Lizza Bomassi
Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Elina we're coming up to time now, but there's one last thing that I wanted to talk about, which I think for me is a little bit not the elephant in the room, but the sort of the little pink elephant in the room, if you like. Geographically, Europe and Southeast Asia are so far away from each other, and they also have their own day to day distractions. I mean, I could list off at least ten here that are just constantly on the foreign policy agenda, at least with regards to the EU. And I'm sure you could do the same for Southeast Asia, and it plays a lot into the importance of the relationship, right? But I think it's so important to remember that you've had this sort of rise of populist politics here in Europe. It was here a few years ago. About a decade ago. It went into slumber. And now it's coming back again. And we're really seeing this sort of rise of populist extreme right ideology which is coming back into play. And I think globalization has been sort of been blamed for all of that. But I think it's so important to remember that, in a way, we're almost going to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's been 75 years of relative peace and prosperity, global, right? And that's also because of how open and codependent the world has become. So if we're not able to explain why it's important to your average European that we keep relations well with Southeast Asian countries, then we're missing out on so much. And it's sort of, you know, humans - we have this very short historical memory. And if you haven't had a major blip in your lifetime, it's like you have to almost be shaken in order to remember that. And I think this is one challenge for policymakers in the future, is how do you keep these far away issues on the agenda? And how do you appeal that to your constituencies?
Elina Noor
Yeah, I think you talking about this blip reminds me that we're not even fully out of COVID, yet, right? There's some COVID strains making its way still around the world, and we've already begun acting like it happened 30 years ago. It's business back as usual. And this short term memory or willful approach to just forgetting everything, returning to normal, whatever that is... Is going to be a negative impact on how we take relations forward. And what I mean by this is what worked for us 75 years ago, or throughout the 75 years that we've been living in relative peace and harmony, is not necessarily going to take us through the next 75 years. We have a climate crisis. We have increasing disenchantment with global capitalism that we need to confront. And there are many of us in the world who are not willing to do either. And so there's a very real opportunity for the EU-ASEAN relationship to really take these emergencies into account. Because if we don't talk about some of the structural underpinnings of what has given rise to populism, what has given rise to the cynicism and disenchantment, then we're not going to get very far. Especially if we keep pretending like everything is fine and we just have to go back to normal pre-COVID that's just not going to work.
Lizza Bomassi
Couldn't agree more.
Lizza Bomassi
Elina, it was a pleasure having you on this month's episode of Europe Inside Out. Thank you very much for taking the time, and thank you to our listeners for tuning in.
Elina Noor
Well, thank you for having me, and I hope the EU-ASEAN relationship continues to grow and prosper.
Lizza Bomassi
For those who are interested in learning more about EU-ASEAN relations, I encourage you to read Carnegie's report "Reimagining EU-ASEAN relations: Challenges and Opportunities”. Let us know what you think of the show by reaching out to us on X, formerly Twitter. Our X account is @Carnegie_Europe. You can find Elina @ElinaNoor, that is at E-L-I-N-A-N-O-O-R. Thank you for listening to Europe Inside Out, a podcast by Carnegie Europe.
Lizza Bomassi
If you like the show, leave us a rating and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Our producers are Francesco Siccardi and Mattia Bagherini.
Lizza Bomassi
Our editor is Alexander Damiano Ricci of Bull Media. Sound engineering and original music by Jeremy Bocquet.