Page 412 - SSB Interview: The Complete Guide, Second Edition

countries as well as India, Australia and New Zealand. This new grouping
acted as a prerequisite for the planned East Asia Community, which was
supposedly patterned after the now-defunct European Community. The
ASEAN Eminent Persons Group was created to study the possible successes

and failures of this policy as well as the possibility of drafting an ASEAN
Charter.

In 2006, ASEAN was given observer status at the United Nations General

Assembly. As a response, the organisation awarded the status of “dialogue
partner” to the United Nations. Furthermore, on 23 July that year, José

Ramos-Horta, then Prime Minister of East Timor, signed a formal request for
membership and expected the accession process to last at least five years
before the then-observer state became a full member.

th
In 2007, ASEAN celebrated its 40 anniversary since its inception and 30
years of diplomatic relations with the United States. On 26 August 2007,
ASEAN stated that it aimed to complete all its free trade agreements with
China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand by 2013, in

line with the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. In
November 2007, the ASEAN members signed the ASEAN Charter, a

constitution governing relations among the ASEAN members and
establishing ASEAN itself as an international legal entity. During the same
year, the Cebu Declaration on East Asian Energy Security was signed in

Cebu on 15 January 2007, by ASEAN and the other members of the EAS
(Australia, the PRC, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea), which
promotes energy security by finding energy alternatives to conventional

fuels.

On 27 February 2009, a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the ASEAN
regional block of 10 countries and New Zealand and its close partner

Australia was signed. It was estimated that this FTA would boost aggregate
GDP across the 12 countries by more than $48 billion over the period 2000–
2020.

The ASEAN Way