Elevate ASEAN's Role to Face Challenges, Says Marty Natalegawa

By Nabilah Salleh KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 (Bernama) -- The Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN), poised to celebrate its 50th anniversary this month, should elevate their roles, functions and effectiveness to a higher level in facing future global challenges, said former Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa. Marty said the need is indeed crucial now through its Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat to be implemented in meeting the expectations of growing globalisation demands, as well as in building the region’s resilience to withstand the uncertainties of the global economy and geo-political scenarios. “We’ve had wonderful 50 years of being united and achieved tremendous success stories. However, what the regional body is doing at the moment (maybe) is only working on what I can described as ‘event-and-meeting driven’ basis in finding solutions pertaining to any related issues discussed. “This is one limited approach because incidents or occurrences happen unexpectedly almost everyday for ASEAN to react and give immediate response. ASEAN, therefore must be a little bit more relevance, despite just having thick documents of ASEAN Vision 2025 (on ASEAN's three main pillars). It will need to work harder in this area to wholly embedding it in the region’s population and to react promptly when needed, regionally or internationally,”. The former minister told reporters on the sidelines of Asia-Europe Conference 2017 at the Asia-Europe Institute of Universiti Malaya, here Thursday. Citing the current development of Korean Peninsular issues, Marty added the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the important forum for security dialogue in Asia should also be able to deal with related issues in a more timely fraction. He opined that regional or international issues should be highlighted and convened on a weekly basis or fortnightly and immediately elevate the issues to ministerial or summit level, rather than only discussing in forums or dialogues only after 9-10 months period of time. “This is where I think we need to have leadership by the leaders of the region to have the courage and come out with better ideas and proposals. ASEAN leadership must bring something new to the table, deliver and execute them accordingly,” he said. In collaboration with the European Union Delegation to Malaysia and the EU Centre in Singapore, this two-day conference hosted distinguished keynote speakers, scholars and analysts from Asia and Europe. It covers various topics including “Geo-Strategic Dynamics of Asia”, “Asian-European Regionalism in Comparative Prospective” and “Future Opportunities for ASEAN-EU Relations”. Amongst the keynote speakers were former Foreign Minister of Thailand and former ASEAN Secretary-General Dr Surin Pitsuwan, EU Ambassador to ASEAN Francisco Fontan Pardo and Ambassador & Head of European Union Delegation to Malaysia Maria Castillo Fernandez. --BERNAMA