Your Royal Highness,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to participate again in the Post Ministerial Conferences of ASEAN.

I would like to express to the Brunei Government and people, on behalf of the European Commission delegation, our deep appreciation of the excellent facilities provided for us and for the warm hospitality extended to me and to my delegation.

The enlargement of ASEAN to include Vietnam and the extending of observer status to Cambodia strengthened further, the importance and role of ASEAN as a major contributor to peace and stability in the region, and in the world. No doubt the recent decision by the United States to establish diplomatic relations with Vietnam will make afurther, significant contribution.

For, our part, the European Community has signed, only a fortnight ago, a cooperation agreement with Vietnam to develop and intensify our bilateral relations. This agreement is complementary to the EC-ASEAN regional agreement. The EC also plans to negotiate similar, agreements with Cambodia and Laos in, the rear future.

We hope that these cooperation agreements will help ASEAN's neighboring countries to integrate themselves progressively into ASEAN.

Concerning Myanmar, the Commission of the European Union ,views the release of Aung San Suu Kyi as a first important step or, the way to national reconciliation and respect for universal human rights. We hope that the release of the Nobel prize winner will be the start of a process towards peaceful and non- violent political change to return the country to normal.

In this context we hope also that Myanmar will continue the process of opening its economy and society and join, the other countries of Southeast Asia on the way to democracy, progress and prosperity.

As one of the first and still one of the leading regional integration groups, the European Union cannot but support regional integration in other parts of the world, provided that such regional groups are not intended to be exclusive but remain open to other countries or regions, and also that they are not aimed at being projectionist and divisive but complement multilateral trade and economic liberalisation.

Our own experience with regional integration has been positive, we are convinced that ASEAN will likewise make a very important contribution to the prosperity of the Asia Pacific area and its links with the outside , world.

With regard to APEC, the European Union is encouraged by the Bogor Summit's confirmation that APEC is committed to produce freer trade in conformity with World Trade Organisation rules. The principle of the open international trading system is, in our view, the benchmark against which regionalisation initiatives should be assessed.

The European Union ,welcomes the establishment of the World Trade Organisation, not only for the considerable liberalisation which it will bring to world trade but also for the fact that we now have binding multilateral rules on subjects which were either inadequately covered or not covered at all previously. Another important step forward was the adoption of a binding dispute settlement procedure and the concomitant renunciation of unilateral trade measures by members of the World Trade Organisation. Recently, the Council of the European Union expressed its attachment to the proper functioning of the multilateral system and expressed its disapproval of the use of unilateral measures and quantitative objectives for exports which infringe both the letter and the spirit f World Trade Organisation agreements.

The establishment of the World Trade Organisation, however, does not only mark the end of one chapter in the history of the multilateral trading system, it also marks the beginning of a new one. There is still heavy work-load ahead of us, both in terms of the unfinished business of the Uruguay Round, especially in the field f financial services, and the negotiations for the new post-round agenda. The European Union is playing and will continue to play an active constructive role in this work. We would expect other participants of the PMC to make similar contributions.

The Commission was extremely pleased that all ASEAN governments and also Japan and Korea informed that they had decided to maintain their present offers on financial services. The interim deal (until the end of 1997) announced a few days ago which the European Union pioneered will it is hoped, be a major stepping stone towards a world-wide permanent arrangement on financial services to achieve what the European Union has long been strongly committed to, so that financial services can become subject to the kind of multilateral discipline envisaged during the Uruguay Round.

The Commission of the European Union is of the opinion that only if all the contracting parties to the World Trade Organisation commit themselves to the multilateral discipline will the expansion of trade and investment bring benefit to all nations.

The world is gradually becoming more and more interdependent and integrated. Thus, open regionalism and globalization will constitute the foundation upon which the world can build a new, balanced international economic order for the 21st century.

Thank you.