JPM-Press Release-2022-20

Speakers at the webinar on “An ASEAN-EU Insight: Best Practices in Cross-Sectoral Coordination”.

14 June 2022 – The Permanent Mission of the Philippines to ASEAN and the EU Delegation to ASEAN jointly conducted today the virtual forum, “An ASEAN-EU Insight: Best Practices in Cross-Sectoral Coordination".

This Webinar is the first time that there was contact, albeit virtually, between the Committee of Permanent Representatives of ASEAN (CPR) and the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the EU (COREPER) as represented by its incoming chair.  Together in the same screen were the Chair of the CPR, Ambassador Yeap Samnang of Cambodia, and the incoming Chair of COREPER, Ambassador Edita Hrdá of the Czech Republic, who was also one of the speakers.

Ambassador Yeap Samnang, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Cambodia to ASEAN and CPR Chair, highlighted the role of the CPR and remarked that “being based in Jakarta…the CPR has been supporting ASEAN’s journey to become a rules-based organisation through the development of guidelines, terms of reference, plans of action and work plans…"

Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. Lukas Gajdos of the EU Delegation to ASEAN underscored that ASEAN and EU cooperation are based on shared  values, and expressed the hope that “today’s event will continue in the future with further virtual and in-person interactions between our [European] Council preparatory bodies and ASEAN’s CPR".

The webinars’ speakers provided an overview of ASEAN’s and EU’s institutions and decision-making system, and how coordination among its institutions, sectors and bodies are made. They included incoming COREPER Chair, Ambassador Hrdá of the Czech Republic; Ms. Kristi Raba, Senior Administrator of the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU; and Raymund Quilop, Assistant Director and Head of the ASEAN Political Security Community Analysis and Monitoring Division at the ASEAN Secretariat.

In his concluding remarks, Ambassador Noel Servigon, Permanent Representative of the Philippines to ASEAN, highlighted that while both ASEAN and the EU “have their own distinctions, particularly in the way our institutions are set up. Despite the dissimilarities, we have much to learn from one another.” (END)