Brussels, 01/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 4 and Tuesday 5 October, Brussels will play host to the 8th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which will bring together 46 leaders from the EU member states and from Asian states (Burma/Myanmar, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam of the ASEAN Region, plus China, India, Japan, Mongolia, Pakistan and South Korea) along with three countries which will become members of ASEM at this meeting - Australia, New Zealand and Russia. Set up in 1996 by the Bangkok Summit, ASEM is an inter-regional forum which seeks to facilitate political dialogue at the highest level between the EU and its Asian partners.
Against the current backcloth of crisis, and just before the G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea, the 8th ASEM will, to a large extent, be dominated by issues of economic and financial governance. Important issues of mutual interest will be discussed over the course of the four working sessions: modernisation of the IMF, market access, intellectual property rights, nuclear proliferation, humanitarian aid, piracy at sea, organised crime, terrorism, human rights and sustainable development. One area where there is a difference in viewpoint between Europe and Asia - climate change - will also be discussed, two months before the next UN climate conference in Cancún, Mexico.
The 8th ASEM will meet as tension is once again growing in relations between the two main Asian players, China and Japan, with ownership of the uninhabited islands of Senkaku (Diaoyu, in Chinese) the bone of contention. The islands are de facto under Japanese control, but China claims them as its own.
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will welcome 36 heads of state and government on Monday, including Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jibao, Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, and around a dozen foreign ministers, including Sergei Lavrov of Russia. King of the Belgians Albert II will host a reception at the royal palace on Tuesday.
Other event are scheduled on the sidelines of the summit, including inter-parliamentary meetings, a business summit bringing together company leaders from both regions and a citizens' forum.
The 46 ASEM countries represent 50% of global GDP, 58% of the world's population and 60% of trade. (E.H./transl.rt)