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Asia-Europe People’s Forum and EU-ASEAN FTA Campaign Network hold forum
on “Changing context and emerging challenges in EU-ASEAN and Philippines relations”
18 February 2010
Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

AROUND 50 civil-society organisations from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao engaged European Union Ambassador Alistair MacDonald in discussions about a stronger Europe two months after the Lisbon Treaty came into force.

The forum, entitled “Changing context and emerging challenges in EU-ASEAN and Philippines relations,” forms part of the preparation for the Eighth Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF-8) in Brussels, Belgium, where social movements from both continents will come together to challenge the new, stronger role that Europe is going to play in the global economy and politics, and try to re-direct EU towards a more sustainable, democratic, and equitable domestic and foreign policies and actions.

Opening the forum, Tina Ebro, AEPF co-coordinator for Asia, noted that the Lisbon Treaty and the Global Europe Trade Strategy are feared to pave the way for EU to expand its neo-liberal strategies which intensify inequalities within and between countries. She said the forum seeks to find out how these policies would affect EU policies on climate change, trade, and migration.

Ebro also noted the great shift from a unipolar to a multipolar geopolitical world, especially with the rise of China, India, and Brazil, even as the United States is expected to continue its political and military dominance.

Ambassador MacDonald, who is the main speaker of the forum, said that the Lisbon Treaty seeks to expand EU’s reach and authority around the world. The treaty would “strengthen the global voice of Europe,” he said, with the appointment of Catherine Ashton as EU High Representative on External Relations.

Aside from giving EU a legal identity, the Lisbon Treaty also makes the regional bloc democratic and transparent through, among other things, making the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding, he said.

On trade and investment, the treaty would make EU “better able to defend its business interests abroad, and deepen the manner trade policy is defined,” the ambassador said. In more concrete terms, foreign direct investments, previously the mandate of member states, would now rest with EU, leaving investment protection and promotion with the former, he said.

The European Parliament would become more fully involved in trade policy, with trade agreements needing its approval, increasing its involvement from consultation.

The Lisbon Treaty is not expected to change much of the regional bloc’s migration and asylum policies, but to move them forward. The treaty also wants to put EU in the forefront of climate change issues, as it “for the first time, makes reference to combat climate change” to fulfill EU’s objectives of sustainable development and improvement in environmental quality.

“Social policies remain firmly within the competence of member states,” the ambassador said, referring to health and social services and other social protection policies. On peace and security, the treaty seeks to “enhance the voice of EU in defense, security policies.”

Many of the reactors had strong misgivings about the treaty and its effects on the developing world.

Charles Santiago, of the Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation and a member of parliament of Malaysia, noted that the treaty “largely serves the interest of business, especially European business.”

Santiago, who is also AEPF co-coordinator for Asia, said the role of Ashton’s office is to work together with business, remove obstacles for trade, and promote international business, with the treaty enhancing this role and global competitiveness

This means in practice that EU would ensure its “fair share of the global market,” access to raw materials (particularly energy), and access to land, in competition with US, Japan, China, and Korea.

In its free trade agreements (FTAs) with other countries, under the sustainable development chapter, while EU encourages the adoption of labor standards of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), it does not make it mandatory, providing no sanctions to violators, Santiago pointed out. In contrast, business violations have clear sanctions.

Specific to ASEAN, Santiago wondered if EU was serious about pursuing a social ASEAN, given that the region has a huge informal sector that grapples with the issue of human rights.

The Malaysian legislator called the FTAs that EU signed “dangerous bilateral, regional arrangements.” For instance, the FTA between EU and Singapore contained high levels of commitment, forcing the subsequent FTAs to have higher levels of commitment.

The nature of FTA negotiations also lends itself to “pitting one nation against the other,” resulting in maximum extraction out of the southeast Asian region. That’s why in EU’s FTA with Malaysia, the latter was forced to offer commitments it was otherwise not prepared to give.

As unequal trading partners, the FTAs only “institutionalise the inequality of both our regions,” Santiago said. “It does not help that there are different trading rules and arrangements for the workers of EU and the workers of ASEAN.”

Kris Vanslambrouck, partner officer of the Asia unit of 11.11.11., tackled the environmental issues related to a stronger EU. He said that EU promotes 20 per cent reduction in emission, 20 per cent efficiency in energy use, and 10 per cent use of agro fuels in transport. Policies along these lines are carbon tax, and carbon capture and storage, which EU member states are encouraged to implement. Reducing emission with the use of technology has become very competitive in the region.

However, the trend in specific EU policies on the environments appears contrary to these targets.

For instance, in EU’s Clean Development Mechanism of buying carbon credits, where among other places, there is such a project in the Payatas dumpsite in Quezon City, Philippines, Vanslambrouck pointed out that the mechanism for buying emissions provides less incentive for less emission.

In the high energy-consuming transport industry, EU policy directives have been for more efficient, eco-friendly transport systems; subsidies for reduced energy consumption; and subsidies for use of solar energy. But now, the subsidies are being reduced, he said.

“More connected to the South is the policy to reduce emissions in the transport sector by 10 per cent. The problem is it encourages agro fuel production, like biomass and palm oil in Indonesia,” which impacts on food security, Vanslambrouck said.

Noting that industrialised nations account for 80 per cent of carbon emission, he wondered how the seven billion euros agreed in the Copenhagen Summit, particularly the one-third allocation for mitigation, would be managed.

EU wanted to project itself as a player at the Copenhagen process, particularly in the social and sustainable policies, Vanslambrouck said. But he observed that EU’s engagement in China was weak and EU was also unable to convince the US to make substantial commitments.

Jude Esguerra, executive director of the Institute for Popular Democracy, saw the positive aspects of a consolidated Europe. “In the end, it is better that Europe is coordinating its monetary policy to respond to the crisis …It is better that EU is able to provide for its own.”

He however appealed to Europe’s moral sense not to muscle through policies negotiations with weaker states, and expressed hope that Europe would be guided by its characteristic civility in its interactions with the developing world.

Esguerra said he hopes that EU would be able to extend its social and economic policies, particularly full employment, not just to cover its citizens but everyone who contributes to Europe’s progress, that is, the migrants.

Looking to Europe “with envious eyes,” he suggested the Philippines formulate its own Lisbon and appoint its own Ashton, who would protect the interest of the country’s most vulnerable sectors, not just that of business.
He noted the positive effects of interaction with Europe. For one, citizens’ rights which are prospering in Europe are slowly being put in the agenda of the Philippines as well as the ASEAN.

More than treaties, he called for the evolution of internal institutions that would make citizens’ rights real, citing the success of the elderly in its campaign for exemption to the 12-per cent value-added tax.

That EU is the biggest export market of the Philippines puts front and center the following questions: Is it better to export goods with Filipino labor in them than to export Filipino labor? Do we want investors here or do we want Filipinos going there?

“We should be able to draw deep moral positions expressed in our own diplomatic and campaign statements, not power play, in generating results,” he said.

On the issue of social protection, Esguerra said the Philippine elderly’s recent struggle shows that a country’s economic strength assures support for social protection programs. (The president had threatened to veto the Expanded Senior Citizens’ Act due to costs to the country’s finances.)

To achieve full employment, education for all, and other modern citizenship rights, a weak economy with weak economic revenues can thus be a barrier, he pointed out.

On EU’s migration policies, Ellene Sana, executive director of the Center for Migrant Advocacy, noted that Europeans initiated the conventions of the International Labour Organisation on migrant workers. She said this happened at the end of World War II when many Europeans were traveling across the then distinct borders of EU member states, and experiencing discrimination and even violence in the process.

However, Europeans have since forgotten this positive legacy. She said ILO Conventions 97 and 143 (for equal treatment and non-discrimination for migrants and their families) are now out of the consciousness of European states and peoples. Only a handful of EU member states have ratified these international laws.

“Europe should take pride in these laws that promote and protect the rights of migrant workers and their families. We have been using these laws in Asia to promote and protect our migrant workers’ rights but Europe seems to have forgotten that these came from them,” Sana said.

She noted instead the “very disturbing, very anti-migrant” EU policies: Return Directive (to flush out undocumented and unskilled who are considered a social burden, imposing a one- to 1 ½-year ban on their return to EU), Blue Card Directive (meant to lure professionals and the very skilled who cannot find work in places like the Philippines), and Sanctions Directive (which targets employers who employ undocumented migrant workers).

In the context of EU’s global competitiveness goal, but given EU’s reality of running out of workers but has lots of undocumented and unskilled migrants, “something is really not right,” she said.

“Europe used to be a cradle of human rights, not anymore, especially migrants. Of the 16 million migrants in Europe, 10 per cent are undocumented…They also help shape Europe. You cannot impose policies about them without consulting them. Europe cannot do away with migrants anyway. With global competitiveness, Europe needs the migrant workers,” she said.

EU is spending money to keep migrants out, Sana said. Among them are the1.32 billion euros for border control, which is being sourced out of the region with the establishment of station grounds in Africa; and the 667 million euros in return fund for 2008-2013 (but so far few takers).

“Even if Europe becomes more strict with its borders, it will not stop people from coming to Europe,” she said.

Sana suggested that Europe address its migration concerns not in isolation with trade. She said FTAs should benefit the people in the South, not just Europe business because doing so would keep people in the South from migrating to Europe. She also stressed that the FTAs should not go forward without provisions for minimum standards of labor and migrant rights.

Ambassador MacDonald stayed for more than four hours, listening to the points raised; he tried to answer them all. Participants from other groups were able to ask the ambassador their questions on neo-liberalism, war on terror, EU human rights framework, EU transparency, civil society participation in regulation (in Europe given the Lisbon Treaty), removing trade barriers, and the incongruency of EU’s internal human rights stance vis-à-vis human rights of migrants.