Asia–Europe Meeting

Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM)
Partners of ASEM in blue
Type	Political Dialogue Forum
Partnership	53 Partners
Establishment	1996
Website www.ASEMinfoboard.org

The Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) is an exclusively Asian–European forum to enhance relations and various forms of cooperation between its partners. It was officially established on 1 March 1996 at the first summit in Bangkok, Thailand by the then 15 members of the European Union (EU) and the European Commission, the then 7 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the individual countries of China, Japan, and South Korea. A series of enlargements saw additional EU members join as well as India, Mongolia, Pakistan and the ASEAN Secretariat in 2008, Australia, New Zealand and the Russian Federation in 2010,Bangladesh, Norway, and Switzerland in 2012, as well as Croatia and Kazakhstan in 2014.

The main components of the ASEM process rest on the following 3 pillars:

In general, the process is considered by the partners involved to be a way of deepening the relations between Asia and Europe at all levels, which is deemed necessary to achieve a more balanced political and economic world order. The process is enhanced by the biennial meetings of Heads of State and Government, alternately in Europe and Asia, and biennial meetings of Foreign Ministers as well as political, economic, and socio-cultural meetings and events at various levels.

ASEM currently has 53 partners: 51 countries and 2 regional organisations. The countries are Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, the Lao PDR, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Kingdom and Viet Nam, while the European Union and the ASEAN Secretariat are the regional organisations involved.