Brussels, 24/10/2008 (Agence Europe) - The 7th ASEM (Asia-Europe Meeting), which naturally focused on the international financial crisis, opened in Beijing on Friday 24 October with a call by the president-in-office of the European Council to European and Asian countries to agree on a “common front of initiatives” with a view to the G-20 summit to be held in Washington on 15 November. “I am convinced that Asia, like Europe, must work together to regulate the global financial system differently”, said Nicolas Sarkozy speaking to the heads of state and government of the 43 countries attending the summit. “Europe needs Asia, its growth, its intelligence, its creativity and Asia needs Europe, its technology, its know-how, its stability (…). We need to develop common responses on the financial system, on the monetary system”, he said. China, which presides over the ASEM summit, is ready to seek to formulate a common response between the two continents to overcome the crisis. “We shall devote our talks to ways in which we can address the international financial crisis”, said China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in his opening speech. The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, also called for joint action on the part of both Europe and Asia. “At this meeting, we represent three fifths of the world population (60%) and we produce half of the world's GDP. Joint action by us can make a difference”, he said. The summit will end on Saturday 25 October with the adoption of a joint declaration. In a draft text that was being circulated in Beijing on Friday, the leaders above all called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and also on other international institutions to play “a crucial role in assisting countries affected by the crisis at their request” (e.g. Hungary, Ukraine, Iceland and Pakistan have already turned to the IMF for assistance). Shortly before the summit opened, Japan, China, South Korea and ten members of ASEAN (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Burma, Laos and Cambodia) announced the creation of an $80 billion fund for supporting their economies against the effects of the financial storm on Asian markets. This is the first concerted action taken by Asian countries since the crisis began.
Human rights. In his opening speech, Nicolas Sarkozy also spoke of human rights and especially of child labour. “We believe that no region of the world can give lessons to other regions on this but we believe that human dignity does not depend on the history or culture of each of the regions but that it is a right for every human being on Earth today”, he said. Europe also believes that “the place of children of 10 years of age is not in factories but in schools”, Mr Sarkozy said. (H.B./transl.jl)