A Friend in Need. A Friend in Deed? ASEAN-EU Interregionalism in the Light of Non-Traditional Security Crises in South-East Asia

Abstract

The aim of this article is to assess the European Union’s (EU) engagement with and within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states in the field of non-traditional security (NTS) between 1997 and 2009, prior to the Lisbon Treaty becoming effective. The analysis concentrates on the EU’s response to five NTS crises and the interregional level of interaction from a sector-specific governance and social-constructivist approach. These crises are the avian influenza, the political conflict and the tsunami in Aceh, the Bali bombings and the Asian financial crisis (AFC) in South-East Asia. The case studies illustrate EU NTS action and gauge EU NTS actorness from a South-East Asian perspective to substantiate the EU’s interregional interaction and external actorness quality in specific fields of governance in a region so far away.