Many European governments are considering the need for more self-sufficiency and less free trade since Russia invaded Ukraine
Back in July 2009, before pundits could point to a recognizable foreign policy from the European Union, there was at least some surety that Brussels led the world in supporting free trade.
“ASEAN and the EU are leading by example: closer cooperation between nations is the only way forward in a globalized world,” Javier Solana, then the EU’s foreign policy chief, boasted at a partnership summit in Phuket, Thailand, that month.
The EU was ASEAN’s largest trading partner, he noted, and ASEAN was the EU’s leading foreign direct investment destination in Asia. “ASEAN and the EU are committed to this principle, but they are also depending on each other to succeed.”
When the EU signed a free-trade agreement with Singapore in 2018, its first with a Southeast Asian country, the city-state’s minister-in-charge of trade relations, S Iswaran, stated: “Singapore is glad to have an abiding partner in the EU … to resist nativist rhetoric and inward-looking policies.
“We must sustain a strong stance in favor of free trade and multilateralism,” he added.
When the EU concluded a trade pact with Vietnam the following year, the European Commission described it as the “most ambitious free trade deal ever concluded with a developing country.”
In the 2020 State of Southeast Asia survey, produced annually by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, the region’s opinion-formers were asked who they considered the leading champion of free trade. The EU came second, just behind Japan, with 25.5% of the vote.
In 2021, it again came second. But in the latest survey, for 2022, the EU fell to fourth place, several percentage points behind China.
If the EU’s image as a free-trade crusader is under threat, it possibly stems from the EU’s own actions, some analysts say.
“The European Union’s non-tariff barriers are often seen by critics as mercantilist, protectionist measures by proxy,” said Rahul Mishra, a senior lecturer at the University of Malaya’s Asia-Europe Institute.
In mid-March, for instance, Brussels increased tariffs on stainless steel products from Indonesia after alleging that they benefited from unfair subsidies, including some from China’s Belt and Road investment program.
On top of existing anti-dumping tariffs, Indonesia will now face an overall tariff of 30.7%, up from 21.4% previously.
The move was designed to protect European steel producers from what the EU’s investigators alleged was unfair competition from Indonesia.
Last Update: 18/04/2022