KUALA LUMPUR: The European Union (EU) hopes to start negotations on a political cooperation agreement with Malaysia to push relations to greater heights, its ambassador and head of delegation to Malaysia, Vincent Piket, said yesterday.The agreement would provide a new and coherent structure to work together, he said, adding that there had been a lot of dynamics in the relationship between the two par ties as they had been involved in cooperation in various areas.
“Presently, Malaysia and the EU have no political cooperation agreement… we do a lot together but we need to move one step together and the cooperation agreement will have us do that,” he told reporters after delivering a talk on ‘The Lisbon Treaty’ at the Asia-Europe Institute, University Malaya, organised as part of the Ambassadors Lecture Series, here.
The Lisbon Treaty, signed in December 2007 and which came into force on Dec 1, 2009, was to make the 27-member EU states more efficient, more democratic internally and more coherent on the world stage.
Answering a question, Piket said that if everything was agreeble between the two sides, the negotiations might start middle of this year.
“This is a negotiation that will normally take a year-and-a-half or two years (to complete)… it provides a first time ever formal structure on our bilateral relations,” he said.
He said the political cooperation agreement provided for cooperation in areas such as fighting terrorism, border crossing crime and human trafficking as well fighting weapons of mass destruction and also climate change.
Piket said the EU perceived Malaysia as an important dialogue partner on a number of issues like the intergration of Asean where the EU was wholeheartly supportive and the Mindanao peace process where Malaysia was actively playing the role of facilitator.
“We value Malaysia’s role in global issues such as fighting climate change… we believe Malaysia has the capability to make a meaningful contribution…and (is) a leader within Southeast Asia on climate change mitigation action,” he said.
Piket said the EU also hoped to start bilateral trade negotiations with Malaysia this year.
“We feel we have to do that in order to give a boost to our trade.Our firms and companies expect action from us against the backdrop of the economic crisis and doing more trade is one way of doing it…we want more engagement with Malaysia.
Piket said that previously the EU had tried to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Asean as a group but found it was not a feasible option presently.
“For that reason, the EU now has proposed with most advanced Asean members to start negotiations on bilateral trade agreements first and later on to build these bilateral agreements into a regional framework,” he said.
The EU is Malaysia’s fourth largest trading partner and its second largest source of foreign direct investment.Malaysia is also EU’s second largest trading partner in Asean after Singapore.Total EU-Malaysia trade last year was close to RM250 billion.
Commenting on the recently unveiled New Economic Model (NEM), Piket said it was no doubt a very courages policy statement by the Malaysian government.
“I think (it’s) a very frank and honest statement… with a very self-critical assessment of weaknesses and constraints in Malaysia’s economy that hamper the growth. — Bernama