Australia's Rudd defends push for Asian EU

Jun 6, 2008, 1:12 GMT

Sydney - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pledged Friday to push on with his plan for an Asian counterpart to the European Union despite the proposal being lambasted by two former Australian leaders from his own Labor Party.

Bob Hawke, the architect of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum set up in 1989, said the EU model was unsuited to Asia.

Paul Keating, Hawke's successor and the convener of the first APEC annual leaders' meeting in 1993, said relinquishing sovereignty would be too big a sticking point.

'I do not believe such a model will or can be adopted by the states of East Asia, or for that matter by the US,' Keating said. 'Problem-sharing and dialogue is one thing, the surrender or partial surrender of sovereignty is an altogether different thing.'

Rudd, who is just seven months into his first term as prime minister and is the least experienced of the region's leaders, was unmoved by the criticism from within his own party.

'What I'm concerned about in our region here in the Asia Pacific is that we want to avoid two things: one, any drift towards long-term conflict; and, two, we want to encourage greater economic integration,' Rudd said. 'At present, we don't have a single body in our region which does both those things.'

The Mandarin-speaking former diplomat appointed close friend and former ambassador to Indonesia Richard Woolcott as his envoy to the region on his Asia Pacific Community (APC) plan.

India, not presently a member of APEC, would be a cornerstone member of the proposed APC along with the US, China, Japan and Indonesia.

Rudd said the new body would not replace APEC and the regional Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) but complement them. He noted that the establishment of APEC had been seen by some as an impossible dream and that France and Germany had been able to come together in the EU.

Rudd said of the proposed APC: 'It's a big idea, it will be controversial. Some people will necessarily not support it.'