Introduction

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) began in 1996 as a biennial summit of heads of state (or their representatives) from the two regions of East Asia and the European Union (EU). In total ASEM now comprises forty-five ‘co-operation partners’ from the two regions. On the Asian side there are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. On the European side there are the European Commission, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The ASEM process is an instance of interregionalism. This form of global governance contrasts with the intergovernmentalism and transgovernmentalism that characterise the institutions covered in the preceding case studies in this book. Interregional arrangements bring pre-existing regions together in what might be termed a ‘macro-regional’ union. Although such constructions have generally remained modest in ambition and accomplishment so far, some analysts regard interregionalism as an emergent new multilateralism that will become increasingly important in the future (Hänggi et al. 2006).

In addition to ASEM, other examples of interregionalism include the formal connections that the EU has developed with ASEAN since 1980, the Andean Pact since 1983, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) since 1989 and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) since 1995.