That the ASEAN Heads of Government should consider an ‘‘economic community,’’ even
with the baggage the term brings, is in some sense nothing new. ASEAN has always studied
carefully European economic integration and has seen it as a sort of ‘‘role model,’’ though
certainly to be adapted in the Southeast Asian development context. In this paper, we will
consider what lessons the European experience might hold for ASEAN, as well as extending
some suggestions – based in part on the EU experience – as to how ASEAN might evolve into an
AEC. We begin with a contextual consideration of the determinants of trade flows in the EU–
ASEAN context in Section 2. This is followed in Section 3 by a review of the evolution of
ASEAN economic integration, culminating in the AEC. Section 4 then proceeds to delineate
some salient lessons of the EU experience for ASEAN. Finally, we give some suggestions as to
how the AEC might proceed in Section 5.