In the spirit of proliferating ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), it is hard to leave one crucial entity that not only has a long historical connection with most of ASEAN countries, but has also become one of ASEAN’s biggest trading partners: The European Union. It is, in fact, hard to leave European Union in any international relations matter, considering the great influence the body has globally. Thus, it marks the importance of Indonesia Community for European Studies’ (ICES –“ Komunitas Indonesia untuk Kajian Eropa”; KIKE) involvement in the annual convention of Asosiasi Ilmu Hubungan International Indonesia (AIHII – “Association of International Relations Studies in Indonesia”), hosted by Universitas Mataram in Lombok, last November.The convention held had major theme of “International Relations Studies of Indonesia in Facing ASEAN Community 2015”, despite its major theme, the topic also branched out to other implicated entities that have relations with ASEAN.
In the convention, EUROS, which is a part of ICES, was given privilege of delivering a special panel that talks exclusively about the prospect of ASEAN-EU relations while reflecting to EU’s regionalism for the betterment and lessons-learned to be taken by the ASEAN, who is currently taking the major steps into a bigger form of regionalism with its AEC. In this panel, UGM was represented by three of its scholars: Mr. Muhadi Sugiono, who delivered the topic of “Integration and Europeanization: A Reflection for ASEAN and Southeast Asia”, followed by Ms. Suci Lestari Yuana with her topic of “The Influence of Education Mobility into Regional Identity Building Process in ASEAN and EU: A Comparative Studies”, and Mr. Nurhawira Gigih Pramono with “Comparing European Union and ASEAN as Regional Entity in Facing Regional Conflict” as his presented topic.
In the spirit of erecting wider concern on the European Studies, ICES also enacted other measures to proliferate the ASEAN-EU being brought up. Through its two-days programme, ICES also garnered attention from holding forum discussion of IR studies in Indonesia, that was continued with talk show arranged as well by ICES. Apart from that ICES also distributed short report of European Studies’ learning target that was aimed to surmount deeper talk in the future between Indonesian scholars about the European Union. The learning target that consisted of integration theory, regionalism, supranational governance, borders, security, and national identity concepts that are endorsed by ICES as the major focus study was proven to cultivate success as during the convention ICES has pioneered an upcoming workshop on European Studies by next year in Universitas Wahid Hasyim, Semarang. This initiative motored by ICES has successfully driven spirit of proliferating epistemic groups in Indonesia to alleviate academics level in Indonesia’s international relations studies.
The EU-ASEAN relations should not only be thought on surface basis, but shall be embedded in Indonesia’s foreign and domestic policy. Moreover with the implementation of AEC that eventually will rupture nations’ economic borders, ASEAN as entity will play major role in Indonesia’s domestic situation. ASEAN-EU relations thus will influent Indonesia’s situation in a portion that is more massive than before. With USD 25 Billion as surplus of ASEAN-EU trade relations in 2011, it is impossible to neglect these mutually beneficial relations, and Indonesia should gear up to alleviate its position soon.