By Javier Solana

Europe's long-standing relationship with South East Asia is shifting into a new gear this year. Our mutual engagement is growing closer and deeper, particularly in the area of building peace, security and cooperation around the globe. We reached a milestone in our relations this year with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh in May on the accession of the European Union (EU) and its member states to the ASEAN Treaty on Amity and Cooperation.

ASEAN is a vital partner for us and I am delighted with this progress. The EU and its Asian partners have a common resolve to tackle today's regional and global threats together and a common interest in developing a system of regional integration and global governance. It is with this shared vision that I will be in Phuket for the July 21-23 meetings with ASEAN partners and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) from July.

We see ASEAN as the key driving force fostering regional integration in Asia. It has emerged as a serious regional player. We have followed with great interest as it has developed into a permanent regional organization, inspired - at least in part, we believe - by our own example of successful integration in Europe.

We welcomed ASEAN's historic adoption last December of a new charter creating a legal framework for further integration and we believe that the ambitious roadmap for an ASEAN community will be an important factor in helping bring about lasting peace, stability and shared prosperity in the region.

The EU is proud to be in ARF, which is the only regional forum in Asia devoted solely to security issues. We are stepping up our involvement with ARF, which has contributed to peace and security in Asia over the past 15 years, because we regard it as an essential venue for dialogue.

The need for Europe and Asia to discuss global strategies is all the greater this year, given the multiple crises facing the world: Food, fuel, flu and finance, or the four Fs, as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recently. The EU has vital interests in the region. Its trade with East Asia has overtaken its trade with the US, and it is ASEAN's biggest trading partner.

That is why the meeting in Phuket is so important to us. The ARF is a central pillar in the evolving regional security architecture and with our ARF partners, now and in future, we will share our vision of working together as part of a global, rules-based multilateral system to promote peace and stability through confidence building and preventive diplomacy.

The EU's philosophy is that threats must be prevented early from becoming sources of conflict. Developed and developing countries alike are coping with the dangers and insecurities brought about by globalization, along with the new found opportunities it has created for us all.

The EU is looking forward to discussing both traditional and new security threats at the ARF meeting, ranging from terrorist attacks, the need to reduce nuclear arsenals and prevent more countries from acquiring nuclear weapons to the natural disasters climate change is likely to cause. None of these threats stop at national borders and all of them are as relevant to our Asian partners as they are to the EU.

The EU is making its mark felt by helping create a more secure world, and we can and must work closely with Asia in this. We will continue to support concrete, action-oriented cooperation focused not only on confidence-building measures, but also on conflict resolution.

Over the past decade, under the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), we have organized more than 20 operations in response to crises in Europe, Africa and Asia.

They range from the successful post-tsunami peace-building mission in Aceh, Indonesia, where we worked closely and very successfully with participating ASEAN members, to our first-ever naval task force, Operation EU NAVFOR Atalanta, fighting piracy off the coast of Somalia. We have another mission in Asia, training and mentoring Afghan policemen.

Lasting solutions to conflicts must bind together all regional players with a common stake in peace. This is what the European project is about and this is what our deepening relationship with Asia is about.

We firmly believe strong ties between different regional groups are crucial for global peace and security. We are committed to stepping up our engagement in Asia's regional integration processes, including the East Asia summit.

We share with Asia a vision that by 2020 the Asia-Pacific region will be an area of lasting peace, stability, friendship and prosperity based on a foundation of mutual trust, where preventive diplomacy pursues the ultimate goal of conflict resolution. It is vital, especially for ARF, to make this vision a political reality.

The author is EU foreign policy chief.

(Xinhua News Agency July 23, 2009)