Herman Van Rompuy spoke out against nationalism and discrimination during a reception in Mandalay

27 ตุลาคม 2560

SPEAKING in Myanmar’s second largest city, European officials spoke out against nationalism and discrimination in an audience consisting of the region’s elected officials, businesses and foreign investors.

Herman Van Rompuy, former European Council President and former Belgian Prime Minister, gave his speech about the EU and the idea of peace, democracy and prosperity during a reception hosted by the European Chamber of Commerce Myanmar (EuroCham) on October 21 in Mandalay.

During a sideline interview, The Myanmar Times caught up with EU ambassador Kristian Schmidt and David Levrat, EuroCham chair.

Mr Levrat hailed Mandalay as the country’s northern economic powerhouse.

“It shows the great and growing interest European companies have for Myanmar and Mandalay in particular. Mandalay is the centre for economic activities in upper Myanmar,” he said, naming construction, health and energy as some of the major sectors of interest for European investors.

The EuroCham, French and German chambers have established or are considering setting up a branch in the city.

Lessons for AEC

Domestic businesses, in particular the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), have time and again expressed concerns that regional economic integration under the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) framework would pose a threat to them. The Myanmar Times asked Mr Schimdt what the lessons the European single market can offer.

The ASEAN economic integration process is potentially “difficult” for Myanmar because it was in isolation when its neighbours were “rushing forward” and more advanced in development, Mr Schidmt explained. Strong competition policy, leveraging Myanmar’s export opportunities in the EU and a sound regulatory framework are part of the solutions.

“There is a fear that the others are going to be stronger,” he said, but added that Myanmar is the “largest economy with absolutely no barriers in exporting to Europe”, urging the country to capitalise on this unique advantage.

“Our experience would be strong competition policy. You have in Europe the same thing. You have already well-established big companies in Western Europe, and then suddenly we open up to a country like Bulgaria or Romania or Estonia - small countries coming in with much smaller businesses. They benefitted because they were protected against unfair competition but they grew because of the opportunities in the internal market.”

Identity

Since the end of Myanmar’s decades-long isolation, there is a lot of soul-searching on the country’s identity and values. The Myanmar Times asked the ambassador what a EU identity means and whether the identity is defined by the common values, culture, ethnicity or shared history.

“Your question is what does it mean [what it means] to be European. First of all, it means that you are not something against something else. I’m Danish, you [David Levrat] are French, he [Herman Van Rompuy] is Belgian. That doesn’t mean taking away from being our nationality and [while] at the same time being European.

“We are citizens of the world. Because Europe is created out of the concept that we are better together, with nations working voluntarily together for peace and development. Now that after 60 years, we have seen that we can make this work. We feel the duty and obligation also to demonstrate the value of regional cooperation to friends around the world.

ASEAN is in many ways inspired by the European integration process.

“To be European, of course also means we are aware of our history. We are aware of the war and conflict on the European continent and the suffering it has caused not just for us Europeans but also people across the world. I just came from Mandalay Hill and you can see there the marks of soldiers fallen in the Second World War. This is the WWII that started in Europe. We exported it unfortunately to the rest of the world. So we feel we have this duty to share our history, the good sides and the bad sides, and also to project peace and the values that come with peace. But peace is not just something you take off the shelf. It is something that you would work for everyday. What does it take? It takes tolerance. It takes determination and non-discrimination and it takes respect for human rights. So we have learnt a lot from our own mistakes and it’d be good if others could avoid making the same mistakes,” the ambassador observed.

The EU

Speaking to an audience including Mandalay Region Chief Minister U Zaw Myint Maung, members of the Mandalay Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry and European businesses, Mr Van Rompuy said that democracy, peace and prosperity are the three tenets for the EU project. Germany and France waged war for centuries and reconciled via the European project.

The EU is just the opposite of nationalism. Nationalism was the main reason for war.

- Herman Van Rompuy, Ex-European Council President

“All of a sudden they realised they can be friends.

“When I look to East Asia, reconciliation is still - I try to find the right word - a task. When I listen to leaders and common people in China and Japan, there is a lot of work to do. We are not a model or template for the rest of the world, But we learned hard lessons.

“Our lesson is that reconciliation is absolutely key for lasting peace.

“How can we have lasting peace? By creating economic integration, if there is trade among former enemies, then fate and future depend on each other. And if one country would start with war again, the first result would be a high price in terms of prosperity and living standard. They have to lose a lot when they wage war.

“We cannot realise this [the European project] in one day, or in one year. We need time, step by step. The EU is an innovative idea but the implementation of this innovation is step-wise. So we created a community of steel and coal … and then the customs union, and then the single market, and then the common currency. Step by step. It took decades, but we did it.

“The EU is just the opposite of nationalism. Nationalism was the main reason for war, as a former French president who said that nationalism means war. When I see today in the world and even, but to a lesser extent, inside the EU these traces of resurgent nationalism, I’m very worried, because that created all the problems. Nationalism is the opposite of the EU and of peace.

“We have 28 countries speaking 28 languages. All documents of the EU are translated into 24 languages ... There are no majorities and no minorities…” the ex-president said.

Democracy and peace

“The second reason of the EU is the creation of democracy.

“Why did we [the EU] grow from six to 28 [member states]? One of the main reasons is the EU as a haven of peace and prosperity has the soft power. The former fascist countries - Spain, Portugal and Greece - after putting their dictatorship behind had a strong desire to join the EU. The same happened to all the former Communist countries. They saw what the difference was in terms of liberty and prosperity.

“The third reason for the founding of the EU is prosperity. We created a single market, free from duties and using the same standards and later even the same currency. Prosperity was of course one of our success stories.

“Peace and democracy are in the heart of the European project.”

Mr Van Rompuy added that when the European project started, Italy only had democracy for five years. “So we were young democracies when we started the European Union. Even in my country [Belgium], women could vote in 1948 in parliamentary election. That happened a few decades ago.”

“But we want to anchor the democracy for everyone. They [the former dictator-ruled regimes] wanted to join the EU and anchor democracy so dictatorship would not come back.”

“We have three main objectives: prosperity, security and fairness. These can be the objectives of every nation in the world.”

The ex-European Council president called Brexit, the UK’s prospective withdrawal from the EU following a nationwide referendum, “political amputation” and said it was “very very sad”.

He added that the economic success of India and China which resulted in millions of people lifted out of poverty could not have been achieved without export-led growth and without the EU giving them access to the biggest market in the world.

“That is why the EU has a programme called Everything But Arms.” The Everything But Arms scheme grants full duty-free and quota-free access to the EU single market for all products, except arms and munitions.

Citing the recently concluded EU-Japan free trade agreement, Mr Van Rompuy said the EU “said no” in the midst of world protectionism, and contrasted with US President Donald Trump’s decision to drop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

“We want to remain an open economy, and you can benefit from it.

“If you can benefit from us, our investments and our aids, in some way, you can also exemplify good old Europe a lot,” he concluded.

 

(The Myanmar Times: https://www.mmtimes.com/news/eu-opposite-nationalism-van-rompuy.html )