26 August 2020
Regionalism and COVID-19: How EU-ASEAN Inter-regionalism Can Strengthen Pandemic Management
Executive Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is testing international cooperation and presents a particularly daunting challenge to regionalism. The transboundary nature of pandemics requires regional cooperation for successful pandemic management. However, even the two most successful regional organisations, the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), seemed unable to muster a sufficient regional response. This was in stark contrast to timely securitisation and robust responses at the national level.
Several months into the pandemic, both the EU and ASEAN are somewhat recovering from their initial COVID-19 paralysis. In particular, the EU has responded belated but comprehensively to the pandemic. This report investigates how both organisations responded in the months following the global COVID-19 outbreak, how ASEAN can look towards the EU for regional pandemic management best-practices, and how both organisations can explore greater EU-ASEAN cooperation by building on existing strong inter-regional ties.
In this podcast, Frederick Kliem, Visiting Fellow at RSIS, shares his key takeaways on his recent RSIS Policy Report titled "Regionalism and COVID-19: How EU-ASEAN Inter-regionalism Can Strengthen Pandemic Management".
Executive Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is testing international cooperation and presents a particularly daunting challenge to regionalism. The transboundary nature of pandemics requires regional cooperation for successful pandemic management. However, even the two most successful regional organisations, the European Union (EU) and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), seemed unable to muster a sufficient regional response. This was in stark contrast to timely securitisation and robust responses at the national level.
Several months into the pandemic, both the EU and ASEAN are somewhat recovering from their initial COVID-19 paralysis. In particular, the EU has responded belated but comprehensively to the pandemic. This report investigates how both organisations responded in the months following the global COVID-19 outbreak, how ASEAN can look towards the EU for regional pandemic management best-practices, and how both organisations can explore greater EU-ASEAN cooperation by building on existing strong inter-regional ties.
