The Declaration on the AEC Blueprin

The Declaration on the AEC Blueprint st
ipulates that, “each ASEAN Member
Country shall abide by and
implement the AEC by 2015.” C
oncerned Ministers were
tasked, with assistance from the ASEAN S
ecretariat, to implement the AEC Blueprint
and report regularly on the pr
ogress of its implementation to the Council of the AEC.
The AEC Blueprint is a very significant development milestone in ASEAN, as an
organization, in general, and in its speci
fic efforts to deepen regional economic
integration. The AEC Blueprint is a clear
departure from ASEAN’
s tradition since it
has never devised a blueprint before to achievi
ng its objectives. The
process of regional
cooperation and ‘regional community building’ in
the past had been left open-ended. It
has been driven by the dynamics of the proces
s itself that oftentimes had been dictated
by the slowest mover. ASEAN remains a volunt
ary organization at large, with decisions
being mostly non-binding in na
ture. There is a serious la
ck of capacity in ASEAN to
enforce its decisions either at the regional or
at the national level. Many of its past
initiatives had been implemented disappointingly slow.