Download Lessons Learned from the European Union (EU) Debt Crisis to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)

Lessons Learned from the European Union (EU) Debt Crisis
to the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC)
Isawan Kaeochotchuangkul, Thamon Benjapongsapun and Veeris
Ammarapala*
With the rise of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015,
ASEAN will be perceived as a single market allowing free flow of
goods, services, investment, capital, and skilled labors. This clear
objective of the integration is rather similar to the European Union
(EU) formation, which also initially started from the integration of
economic community. Even though the EU had been considering
as one of the leaders in world’s economy for decades, the region’s
financial crisis has recently been revealed and remained
unsolvable. This paper extensively examines the key factors that
were the root causes of current European Union Crisis. Then, the
authors compare situations between the emergence of ASEAN
Economic Community and the development of European Union to
find the traits of similarities. The findings of this analysis could be
considered as policy recommendations to AEC policy makers in
order to keep the AEC away from the foreseeable economic
pitfalls.
Keywords: Economic Integration, European Union, ASEAN Economic Community
1.
Introduction
1.1. European Union Background
In the year of 1951, six European countries; France, Germany, Italy, Belgium,
Luxembourg and the Netherlands, was cooperatively formed the first European
Community under the name of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). Other
than to organize the two key economic indicator resources, the organization also aimed
to maintain political stability and ensure lasting peace among European countries,
especially between the main polar after World War II, which were France and Germany
(Europa, 2010). Officially, this was the first milestone of free movement of products
without customs duties and free access to sources of coal and steel production amongst
the European nations. Afterward, in 1957, there were many initiations in attempt to
establish greater collaboration leading to the European Union (EU) formation, i.e., the
establishment of European Economic Community (EEC), which aimed to achieve the
international trade integration in a viewpoint of economic expansion (Europa, 2010); the
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which targeted to mutually create food security for
Europe and supported European farmer by a fair income, according to Economicsonline;
and The European Monetary System (EMS) in 1979, which significantly contributed.
_______________________________
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected] *
School of Management Technology,
Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology
Thammasat University, * corresponding author
1
Then, in 1979, the emergence of European Monetary System (EMS) has significant
contribution to the establishment of EURO currency by starting to maintain the member
states’ currency within the acceptable exchange rate limit (EU Facts, 2012).
The EURO currency adoption came into practice in the year of 1992 under the treaty of
European Union. By deepening the integration among many European countries in
many aspects throughout its history, together with increasing the number of member
states from time to time, EU became one of the strongest leaders in the world’s
economy with a huge bargaining power and was be able to maintain its prosperity.
Nevertheless, the unexpected situation was revealed in January 2010 when EU report
condemns “severe irregularities” in Greeks accounting procedure (The Federal Reserve
Bank of Minneapolis, 2012).
1.2. ASEAN Economic Community Background
In 1967, the Association of South East Asian Nations, ASEAN, was established by the
Bangkok Declaration in order to establish collaboration and inter-relational benefits in
the region. This is the beginning point that many countries put away their conflicts and
considered regional union as mutual benefits. The five founders of this cooperation were
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Then, in 1999, all ten
member countries in the region joined to be the ASEAN community.
ASEAN Economic Community is one of the three pillars established by ASEAN
community in 2003; where Socio-Cultural Pillar and Political and Security Pillar are the
others (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2009).
2.
Current Issues From European Union Crisis
2.1. Currency
European Monetary Union is the economic integration to strengthen the single market
concept among EU member states with the objective of achieving a single monetary
policy and a single currency, the Euro (European Commission, 2012). However, this
idea had not been successfully achieved until 1992, when the Maastricht Treaty set out
the rules and guidelines for each member country to adopt the Euro. Currently,
according to The Euro Information website, 17 EU countries have utilized the same
currency, the rest; i.e., The United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark still employ its own
national currency.
A single currency enhances low and stable inflation, stability in exchange rate and
healthy public finances among EU members. However, in 2009, Greece reported its
debt with 113% of its GDP; which in fact exceeded and doubled the 60% of the GDP
limited by Euro zone (BBC News, 2012). In 2010, Portugal, Ireland and Spain raised
concerns that they have been facing with the financial crisis situation. In order to assist
the member countries from this situation, the EU finance ministers set up “European
Stability Mechanism” to assist those countries.
2
One of the main causes of this financial crisis, for which the research team discovered,
may result from the high discrepancies of currency exchange rates between member
countries currency and the Euro; as depicted in table 1 below. This diversity is a result of
countries with different economic background and growth came together to form a single
union. As time went by, each country, with these cultural and ability differences, had
diminishing flexibilities in terms of government’s financial management.
For example, Greece is the nation that relies mostly on service industries, especially
tourism sector. When the world economy went wrong, there were less tourists going to
Greece, which, in turn, lower their GDP in service sector, especially in the Tourism. As a
result, Greece was put into a difficult situation to repay their debts. On the other hand, if
Greece did not commit to use the Euro, it might be easier for them to devaluate their
currency, which could generate more exports and attract more travelers.
Table 1: Original Country’s Currency compared to Euro (Source: Ibiblio, 2007)
Exchange Rate
13.7603
40.3399
1.95583
5.94573
6.55957
0.787564
1936.27
1 EURO =
40.3399
2.20371
200.482
166.386
340.75
15.6466
239.64
0.585274
0.4293
30.126
Country
Austria
Belgium
Germany
Finland
France
Monaco
Ireland
Italy
San Marino
Vatican City
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
Greece
Estonia
Slovenia
Cyprus
Malta
Slovakia
Although, the EU integration has been trusted for its strong collaboration and countries
that use Euro have gained more credits from financial institutions, it should be
considered carefully whether EU’s monetary integration could provide greater benefits to
its member states.
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2.2. Free Flow of Labor
Free flow of labor across countries is one fundamental benefit of being the membership
of European Union (Eurofound, 2011). Though the free flow of labor could minimize or
put the overall unemployment rates in EU to be at the steady level, when the economic
crisis taking places, higher unemployment has been experienced in every member state.
Developed countries have to protect their own working position for their own people so
they impose certain working restrictions on those countries that have become EU
members after 1995, which were the 10 former communist countries that joined in 2004
and the last 2 countries that joined in 2007 (BBC News, 2009).
Some of the restriction examples are as follows (BBC News, 2009):



Austria and Germany stated that those 12 new member states have to apply for
work permits in order to work in their countries.
Belgium has increased its existing restriction from what it has imposed before.
The Netherlands has raised all of restrictions for those 12 countries and a work
permit will be issued only when there are no suitable workers available in
Netherlands. Though Sweden, United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland had
opened up their labor markets to all new member states, with a large amount of
labor flooded into their countries, some restrictions then have been introduced;
for example, they imposed restriction on the amount of workers allowed from
Bulgaria and Romania – the last 2 countries accepted into EU.
2.3. National Government Budgeting Policy
According to the Maastricht Treaty, one of the eligible criteria for becoming the EU
members is that the ratio of the annual government deficit to Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) must not exceed 3% at the end of the preceding fiscal year (Europa, 2012). Even
though there would be the exceptional case for temporary mismatch situation, in Table
2, the statistics showed the continuous budget deficiencies in many member states
(Eurostat, 2011).
After the member states in European Union became borderless, there was evidence that
many small-size economy countries started to run budget deficit policy to support their
national infrastructures and to improve national standards of living by initiating various
public interest programs. For instance, The increase in the Greece’s deficit in 2008 was
mainly related to accounts payable of social security funds, the increase in the Austria’s
deficit from 2007 to 2009 was due to assumption of debt of the railway company and
public hospitals, and the increase in the Slovenia’s deficit in 2009 was mainly due to
updated source data relating to taxes and subsidies among others. Mostly, the source of
fund came from the member states whose economy size were larger and more stable;
i.e., Germany and France (The New York Times, 2011). Nevertheless, the funding was
not supported by only big countries, but also from many members in the union. As a
result, if one country faces a financial problem, the effect will certainly expand
4
throughout the community because the investment network amongst member countries
has been set.
Table 2: Comparison Table shows Average in EU Deficit and Surplus from 20072010 (Source: Eurostat, 2011)
2007
2008
2009
2010
(million euro)
9,035,939
9,264,270
8,970,953
9,240,316
(million euro)
-60,082
-188,988
-566,680
-550,481
(% of GDP)
-0.7
-2.0
-6.3
-6.0
Government expenditure
(% of GDP)
45.9
46.9
50.8
50.4
Government revenue
(% of GDP)
45.2
44.8
44.5
44.4
Government debt
(million euro)
5,984,848
6,472,881
7,116,276
7,837,207
66.2
69.9
79.3
85.1
(million euro)
12,398,526
12,494,352
11,788,046
12,280,644
(million euro)
-108,011
-296,010
-803,807
-784,107
(% of GDP)
-0.9
-2.4
-6.8
-6.4
Government expenditure
(% of GDP)
45.6
46.9
50.8
50.3
Government revenue
(% of GDP)
44.8
44.6
44.0
44.0
Government debt
(million euro)
7,310,759
7,782,775
8,768,748
9,828,232
59.0
62.3
74.4
80.0
Euro Area(EA17)
GDP market price (mp)
Government deficit(-)
surplus (+)
(% of GDP)
EU27
GDP market price (mp)
Government deficit(-)
surplus (+)
(% of GDP)
Figure 1: Government Deficit and Surplus from 1999-2011
(Source: BBC News, 2012)
5
Figure 2: Member State’s share in the Bank’s capital based on its economic weight
(expressed in GDP) in 2010
(Source: European Investment Bank, 2010)
2.4. Small and Medium Enterprises
With many treaties and collaborations behind the integration of the EU, SMEs business
owners should find it is rather convenient to conduct businesses in various member
states. The barriers to perform business activities were to be eliminated and the efficient
single market was to be formed. However, according to surveys conducted on SMEs
business owners among 27 EU member states by the European Commission in 2007, 9
main obstacles were detected as shown in Table 3 (The Eurobarometer Team of
European Commission, 2007).
6
Table 3: Nine Barrier Factors of EU SMEs with Percentage (The Eurobarometer
Team of European Commission, 2007)
Barrier Factors of EU SMEs
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Lack of Customer’s Purchasing Power
Administrative Regulations
Lack of Skilled Labor
Highly Expensive Labor Forces
Infrastructure Problems
Limited Access to Finance
New Technology Implementation
Implementing New Form of Organization
Lack of Quality Management
Percentage of Survey
Respondents
46%
36%
35%
33%
23%
21%
16%
16%
11%
After examining all of the above information, it can be concluded that there are a number
of several complicated regulatory systems and the technologies that are hard to be
implemented and the costs that are relatively high. Even though there are public support
programs available to support the European SMEs; for instance, Competitiveness and
Innovation Framework Program (CIP), which aims to support innovation activities and
provides better access to finance and delivers business support services in the regions,
European Investment Bank which offers funds for SMEs among others (EU Business,
2009), many SMEs do not know that there are useful information provided Thus, the
businesses results in less competitive as expected.
3.
Lessons Learned from Eu to AEC
3.1. Financial Policy
European Union follows Maastricht Treaty as a guideline to accept new member states.
For monetary integration among the member states, the union set up their financial and
fiscal policy and established the European Central Bank (ECB) to help monitor all
money-related issues within EU.
As for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), though the single currency among
country members has not been discussed, there are financial integrations among AEC
countries, for instance, Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), signed in 2009.
7
Table 4: Currency of Each Country (in USD Dollar) (Source: Association of Southeast
Asian Nations 2011)
Country
Brunei
Darussalam
Cambodia
Indonesia
Lao PDR
Malaysia
Myanmar
Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Viet Nam
1998
2003
2008
2009
2010
1.7
1.7
1.4
1.5
1.4
3,836
10,014
3,298
3.9
249
40.9
1.7
41.3
13,268
4,001
8,575
10,554
3.8
737
54.2
1.7
41.5
15,509
4,079
9,691
8,744
3.3
917
44.5
1.4
33.3
16,303
4,159
10,356
8,516
3.5
918
47.6
1.5
34.3
17,067
4,190
9,078
8,256
3.2
842
45.1
1.4
31.7
18,382
Similar to EU situation portrayed above, table 4 illustrates the same phenomena of high
variety among the AEC member states’ currencies. Therefore, if in the future AEC
wishes to have a single currency as similar to the EU, they will have to consider about
the EU case study; i.e., some member countries could not follow the single currency
monetary policy resulting in a less flexibility in their monetary system, which might lead
to the unsolvable problems and “Domino” effect among member countries.
In the AEC strategic plan, the “Capital Account Liberalization” will help remove the
capital controls and restrictions set by each country. This will enhance flexibility of the
capital flow among member states. The “Capital Market Development” strategy will help
increase capacity and outline the long-term foundation for development of ASEAN
capital markets (The ASEAN Secretariat, 2011). This is organized in order to achieve
the long-term collaboration across the boarders and to improve the market access,
linkages and liquidity among member countries.
However, in case ASEAN countries would like to form the single currency, Table 4 could
illustrate the same phenomena of high variety of each member state’s currency.
Therefore, it might result in the same problem as European Union when some countries
could not flow along with the single currency rate.
3.2. Free Flow of Labor
Unlike European Union, according to the ASEAN Economic Blueprint, one of the free
flows among ASEAN countries is free flow of skilled labor; whilst European Union allows
every level of labor to work across its member states.
8
According to General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) Mode 4 set up by the
World Trade Organization (WTO), movement of natural persons, skilled individuals and
professionals (Ofreneo R., 2008) refer to



Firstly, business visitors who engage in business without seeking employment,
Secondly, traders and investors who carry out specific trading and investment
activities,
Thirdly, intra-corporate transferees who are employees of MNCs that move their
staff across borders and finally, professionals which include doctors, nurses,
lawyers, accountants, engineers, IT personnel and other professionals.
According to ASEAN’s regional and bilateral FTAs, ASEAN Economic Blueprint follows
GATS by allowing only skilled and professional labors to relocate across boarder.
Therefore, with free flow of labor in term of AEC, the movement of semi-skilled and
unskilled labor is restricted and those workers have to follow normal policy of VISA
application of each member state (Yue C.).
According to the Blueprint, the first observation could be drawn is that the duration of
stay of those skilled labors is rather short compared to semi-skilled and unskilled labors.
This means that both destination and origin countries would not experience loads of
changes of the skilled labors, which could transfer knowledge and build up the
knowledge management network among member countries. This way, ASEAN countries
would become more integrated and higher competitiveness.
However, without a well-designed management policy, “Brain Drain” situation could take
place among countries in ASEAN. Though with “Brain Drain” situation, the existing
labors in the lower wages countries would strive to acquire a higher knowledge and
skills, which means that more skilled labors are generated, the fact that skilled labor
from less developed countries will flee into more developed countries and the countries
of origin will lack of skilled labors. This could lead to decreasing growth rate of
development and other social problems. If the bad consequence does occur, the overall
development rate of ASEAN countries will eventually be declined.
3.3. National Government Financial Policy
According to AEC Blueprint, there are action plans to promote financial activities in
regional infrastructure areas as follows; firstly,


Promote greater participation of private sectors and international organizations in
financing regional infrastructure development such as the ASEAN Partnership
Group (APG), Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP), Singapore-Kunming Rail Link
(SKRL), and ASEAN Highway Network; and
To remove or relax impediments to cross-border investment in financing of
regional infrastructure projects (Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2011).
However, not only regional infrastructure should be set, local infrastructure in
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each member states should also available in order to integrate mutual economy
within the region.
With this clear objective, financial integration in ASEAN would be accomplished by the
following three main aspects; Financial Services Liberalization, Capital, Account
Liberalization, and Capital Market Development (Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, 2011).
ASEAN aims to promote trade liberalization by allowing ease of access to financial
services, removing capital controls and restrictions which are similar to the EU policy.
However, to avoid the similar pitfalls as what happened in case of EU, AEC should
establish an organization to monitor and maintain the economic status of each member
country and to ensure that each participant will make a cautious investment through
national infrastructure development, or other states government bonds. Additionally,
even though funding will be made more easily due to the lower interest rate, adequate
degree of debt repayment of each country is dramatically vital. More importantly, the
monitoring should consistently and continuously be enforced.
3.4. Small- Medium Enterprises
Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the major driver of economic in ASEAN. It
accounts for greater than 96% of all enterprises and 50% to 85% of domestic
employment. Additionally, 30% to 53% of GDP also comes from the SMEs sector
(Association of Southeast Asian Nations, 2011).
To ensure the sustainable development of SMEs in ASEAN community, the Strategic
Action Plan for ASEAN SME Development 2010-2015 is developed with the aim to




Enhance the competitiveness of SMEs in the region
Improve access to finance, develop human resource,
Establish an ASEAN SMEs Service Center, and
Set up an ASEAN SMEs Regional Development.
10
Table 5: Five major plans for SMEs under the AEC Blueprint (Source: Association of
South East Asian Nations 2011)
Timeline
2008-2009
2010-2011
2010-2011
2012-2013
2014-2015
Expected Action
A common curriculum for entrepreneurship in
ASEAN
Comprehensive SME service center with regional
and sub-regional linkages in ASEAN member states
SME financial facility in each ASEAN member state
A regional program of internship scheme for staff
exchanges and visits for skills training
A regional SME development fund for use as a
funding source for SMEs that are undertaking
business in ASEAN
Even though the plan is expected to create a strong position of SMEs sector which will
ensure the economic sustainability and social development, several challenges are
being concerned. For instance, there are some issues raised by ASEAN members about
the limited access to finance, technology, and market among member states. In
addition, management skills among ASEAN SMEs, standard environment policy, and
information management are also being questioned referred to Association of Southeast
Asian Nations. All of these issues have to be correctly addressed and focused to
achieve real ASEAN SMEs cooperation in AEC.
4.
Conclusion
In term of currency, AEC has established the financial integration but has not yet
introduced the concept of single currency among AEC member states. However, if in the
future, the AEC would like to form the single currency, the policy makers should study
how diverse each country’s currency is and set up the well-constructed criteria in order
to avoid the same issues that happened to the EU.
Regarding labor movement between member states, both EU and AEC have ratified to
allow the free flow of movement among member countries. Even though the labor
collaborations of EU and AEC are not all similar, i.e., EU allows every level of labor to
work across the member states, while AEC only implement this cooperation on skilled
labors, AEC labor policy makers should consider the possibility of the Brain Drain issue
as it could be the main impediment to the growth rate of the whole community.
In the aspect of national government financial policy, similar to the EU, AEC establishes
financial cooperation which aims to promote trade liberalization by allowing ease of
access to financial services, removing capital controls and restrictions. However, to
avoid any economic instability in the future, as learned from EU situation, AEC policy
maker should set a protocol to monitor and maintain the economic status of each
11
member states and should be able to ensure that each member state will make a
cautious investment.
Regarding SMEs, who play an important role in the development of regional economy,
ASEAN has established the Strategic Action Plan for ASEAN SME Development 20102015 to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs in the region, improve access to finance,
develop human resource, establish an ASEAN SMEs Service Center, and set up an
ASEAN SMEs Regional Development. However, as lesson learned from the EU, even
though they have imposed a great deal of supports, many obstacles can still be
noticeable. With more cultural diversifications, the AEC should consider about
establishing a supporting center that every SMEs from every member country can reach
to effectively increase their competitiveness in the market.
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