European Union Offers To Share Integration Experience With Asean

European Union Board Secretary General Javier Solana has offered to share the union's experience in the integration process with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) which is now drafting a charter of its own, ANTARA reported Saturday.

The European Union wants to share its experience with ASEAN on the integration process, including the failures and successes it met, Solana was quoted by the news agency as saying that on Friday after a meeting with Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajudha.

From the Union's point of view, Solana said, ASEAN with its East Asia Summits was a very interesting phenomenon. Members of the Union might want to have a chance to join ASEAN high-level meetings, he added.

Previously, a member of the Indonesian delegation to the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), former foreign minister Ali Alatas, said the idea of the formulation of the ASEAN Charter was not an effort to make ASEAN a duplicate of the European Union. He, however, said it was time to think that what was right and good for European nations might also be good for ASEAN.


Malaysian National News Agency