Asia-Europe Meeting

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"Asem" redirects here. For the Kazakhstani singer, see Asem Tasbulatova.

The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) was officially established in 1996 at the first summit in Bangkok. ASEM is an interregional forum which consists of the European Commission and the twenty-seven members of the European Union (EU) and the thirteen members of the ASEAN Plus Three regional grouping.^[1]

The main components of the ASEM process, which has so far been loosely organized, include:-

political dialogue
security and the economy
education and culture

or the so-called three pillars.

In general, the process is considered by the parties 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 biannual meetings of heads of state, alternately in Europe and Asia, and political, economic, and cultural meetings and events at all kinds of other levels.

In February 1997, ASEM member countries established Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), which is based in Singapore and mandated to promote better mutual understanding between the peoples of Asia and Europe through greater intellectual, cultural, and people-to-people exchanges. The Foundation is funded by contributions from the member governments, but the cost of many of its projects are shared by other institutions as well as private corporations of ASEM countries. One way ASEF carries out its mandate is by creating its own projects. Some of these initiatives include Asia-Europe Lecture, Asia-Europe Young Artists' Painting Competition and Exhibition, Informal Human Rights Seminar, Asia-Europe Youth Co-operation Network, and ASEF Editors' Roundtable.

The meetings have been held in:

1996 ASEM 1, Bangkok, Thailand
1998 ASEM 2, London, United Kingdom
2000 ASEM 3, Seoul, South Korea
2002 ASEM 4, Copenhagen, Denmark
2004 ASEM 5, Hanoi, Vietnam
2006 ASEM 6, Helsinki, Finland (India, Mongolia and Pakistan were invited to participate in future meetings.[1])
2008 ASEM 7, will be held at October 24th-25th 2008 in Beijing, China

The 8th ASEM Foreign Ministers meeting at May 28-29th 2007 in Hamburg was attended by the 10 members of ASEAN, the 27 member countries of the EU, the European Commission, the EU High-Representative Javier Solana, the ASEAN General-Secretariat, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. The 9th ASEM Foreign Ministers meeting will be held in 2009 in Viet Nam.