The 7th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)

Asia & Europe working together to meet global challenges.

For the past 12 years, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) has been the main multilateral channel for communication between Asia and Europe, strengthening interaction and mutual understanding between the two regions through dialogue. As one of the four “coordinators” of ASEM, the European Commission underpins the process, notably through an ASEM Dialogue Facility.

2008, an historic enlargement

ASEM will formally admit six new members in 2008: Bulgaria, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Romania and the ASEAN Secretariat, bringing the membership up to 45 partners. Representing half of the world’s GDP, almost 60% of the world’s population and 60% of global trade, ASEM embraces virtually the whole of Asia and Europe.

ASEM brings together educators and researchers

A key achievement of ASEM is

TEIN (Trans-Eurasia Information Network), the first large-scale research and education network connecting regional researchers in Asia with their counterparts in Europe. Over 60 million users now have access to improved network performance providing mutually beneficial global research collaboration between Asia and Europe.

ASEM brings together lawmakers, businesses and civil society

Civil society groups, parliamentarians and the business community meet at the

Asia Europe People’s Forum, Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership and Asia-Europe Business Forum, held every two years alongside ASEM Summits.

ASEM brings together the peoples of Europe and Asia

The Singapore based

Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) promotes understanding and collaboration between the peoples of Asia and Europe through cultural, intellectual and people-to-people exchanges. The outreach to civil society and the wider public undertaken by ASEF complements the official ASEM dialogues.