A regional survey released this week finds that Europe’s position in Southeast Asia has improved over the past year.
According to the latest, for the sixth consecutive year, the EU emerged as the region’s most preferred “third party” to hedge against US-China rivalry. state of southeast asia The survey, an annual survey published by ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
About 37.7% of respondents, up from 36.3% last year, said the EU is ASEAN’s preferred and reliable strategic partner.
The survey also found that 19.2% of respondents saw the EU as the main champion of the global free trade agenda, ahead of the United States, although still behind ASEAN and China.
According to the survey, 55.9% of respondents said they trust the EU to “do the right thing” to contribute to global peace, security, prosperity and governance, up from 51.9% last year. Distrust fell from 27.8% to 22.3% over the same period.
The EU is ASEAN’s third-largest trading partner after the US and China, and the bloc’s second-largest source of foreign direct investment.
The EU is a ‘presumptive partner’
Melinda Martinus, lead researcher at ISEAS and one of the survey’s authors, told DW the findings show that Southeast Asia’s confidence in the EU “is growing, but limited, more stable in its normative appeal than its strategic weight.”
The EU already has free trade agreements with Singapore and Vietnam and last year concluded negotiations on a major trade deal with Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
Brussels is also trying to finalize agreements with the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, seeing bilateral deals as building blocks toward an eventual region-by-region trade agreement with ASEAN.
The increase in trust and decline in distrust shows that the EU is being valued as a predictable partner amid uncertainty over US leadership, Martinus said, adding, “Its strong engagement with international law, multilateralism and climate leadership reinforces its image as a stable and non-coercive actor.”
“However, doubts about the EU’s internal unity and its ability to act decisively on the global stage point to a gap between its reputation and real-world influence,” he said.
Indonesia has emerged as an exception. The survey found that it is the only ASEAN country where distrust of the EU was higher than trust during the past year.
Nevertheless, Indonesia remains one of the regional countries most inclined to see the EU as a useful bulwark against US-China rivalry, with 40.7% of Indonesian respondents selecting the bloc as ASEAN’s preferred third-party strategic partner.
US, China or none of the above?
What was once often defined as a primarily economic or normative partnership in Southeast Asia is becoming more strategic, analysts say. This shift is not because the EU has suddenly become a hard-power actor, but because the region is looking for trustworthy partners as confidence in US leadership weakens and concerns remain about China’s growing weight.
The same survey identified respondents’ top geopolitical concern as US leadership under President Donald Trump, whose administration’s unilateral and unpredictable foreign policy “has only made it clear to the EU and Southeast Asian countries that they should diversify relations and do so quickly,” Hunter Marston, a non-resident adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told DW.
That argument cuts both ways. Southeast Asian states want more options as Washington appears more erratic and China’s economic centrality becomes increasingly unavoidable.
For Europe, Southeast Asia is also becoming more important as part of a broader effort to diversify supply chains, reduce dependence on China, and show that the EU remains a relevant player in the Indo-Pacific.
“Not only do the EU and ASEAN face similar challenges, but they also have an interest in promoting international law and multilateralism,” said Alfred Gerstel, an expert on Indo-Pacific international relations.
“As the two strongest regional organizations in the world, they have a strong incentive to cooperate more closely to protect the rules-based order,” he told DW.
Nevertheless, the ISEAS survey was not entirely influential for Brussels.
The EU ranks only third behind ASEAN and China as a potential champion of global free trade, and is also third behind ASEAN and the United States in maintaining the rules-based global order.
Brussels has work to do
In recent months, the EU has faced criticism for failing to send senior officials to key ASEAN meetings.
Chris Humphrey, executive director of the EU-ASEAN Business Council, cited the EU’s absence from the ASEAN Digital Ministers’ meeting in Vietnam in January, which was attended by senior representatives from Washington, Beijing and Moscow.
“We are not attending ministerial meetings when other people are attending, and it is noticed and commented on,” Humphrey told Euractiv late last month. He said that while countries like China send delegates to almost all ASEAN meetings, “Europe has no interest.”
Speaking to DW, Humphrey said trade relations have developed well in recent years, but there are many other areas where the two blocs should work more closely, especially in today’s turbulent geopolitical environment.
He pointed to the EU’s support for the ASEAN Power Grid and energy transition as a way to deepen cooperation, as well as closer engagement at senior level on digital issues.
“The good news is that Brussels is taking more interest, and we hope there will be more commissioner-level participation in ASEAN meetings this year,” Humphrey said.
A more important test will come next year, when ASEAN and the EU celebrate the 50th anniversary of their relations.
This milestone provides a clear opportunity for Brussels to show that its Indo-Pacific ambitions are more than rhetoric.
“Europe really needs to step up and demonstrate publicly that it takes the relationship seriously, wants to deepen it and wants to work with ASEAN on areas of mutual interest, of which there are many,” Humphrey said.
Edited by: Ole Tangen Jr.