Given that the
EU established its own internal (single) market almost 20 years
ago, linking the 500 million citizens of the 27 Member States of
the EU, this has been a natural focus for EU-ASEAN
programmes since the 1990s.
With the Charter, ASEAN formulated the concrete goal of
establishing a single market by 2015. A new large EU
programme to help ASEAN realise the nuts and bolts of this
single market, addressing harmonised product standards and
customs procedures. In addition, the EU helps in areas such as
cooperation on statistics between ASEAN Member States,
crucial in enabling Member States to take informed decisions
on the operation of their single market.