World of Difference

HE Vincent Guérend, Ambassador of the European Union to Indonesia, covers the scope of bilateral relations, such as security, development, and sustainability between Indonesia and Europe. Edith Emeralda writes

Turkey, india, germany, Afghanistan, Japan, France, and Indonesia: HE Vincent Guérend, Head of Delegation, Ambassador of the European Union to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, is a familiar face when it comes to work on Asian and European affairs through the French embassies—personal travels also add to his knowledge, as the seasoned ambassador likes the heritage, diversity, and architecture in the region, among many other things.

“There’s a huge diversity within ASEAN, from each country’s development stages to the peoples, religions, country sizes, and many other factors, which is a bit similar to Europe’s diversity,” Ambassador Guérend said. The richness and variety of cultures also apply to Indonesia, and are the strengths that help bridge the relations with European countries. Starting from positive cooperation and understanding based on certain shared values and the democratic systems, the two sides are supporting each other to help addressing global common challenges.

“On facing terrorism, for example, both Indonesia and the EU have a long experience and have a lot to learn from each other,” he said. “There is an Eu-indonesia security dialogue where we discuss issues such as how to combat terrorism, or how to fight and prevent radicalisation.”

The EU-ASEAN Aceh Monitoring Mission in 2005, which followed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the government of Indonesia and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) is a good illustration of the Eu-indonesia security cooperation.

Outside of counterterrorism and peacekeeping in general, security on the seas is an important issue, especially for a maritime country like Indonesia. “The sea needs rules that govern matters such as fishing, human trafficking, smuggling, drug trafficking, and many other issues,” the ambassador said.

“Both the EU and Indonesia have unique experiences in this area, so we are increasing the cooperation on the capacity building and framework.” However, good infrastructure, skilled workers, and cooperative neighbours are needed to properly run a maritime security programme, added HE Guérend.

Building infrastructure needs funding, and many European countries are investing in Indonesia, especially in transport and renewable energy infrastructure. “We believe that those are long-term investments,” he said. “In Europe, replacing the current usage of fossil fuel to use 32 per cent of renewable energy is even more urgent now as we’re aiming to achieve the UN’S Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) by 2030.” He emphasised that although this is a feasible task, it requires a lot of work considering that Europe’s renewable energy usage is at 15 per cent today.

The EU is known for its ambitious environmental policies, and he expressed concern about the daunting task of fighting maritime litter. The ambassador said that the amount of plastic waste is rapidly increasing, and that everyone needs to act jointly to stop it. The EU is taking a very active role in this matter and plans to ban all non-recyclable and single-use plastics through its ongoing plastic-reducing strategy and circular economy system. “This means that the whole economy at large should produce as little waste as possible through recycling efforts,” the ambassador said. “Meanwhile, non-recyclable waste has to be limited to a minimum.”

As part of the EU’S engagement to protect the Ocean, and keeping them clean, alive and well-managed, the European Union hosted last year’s “Our Ocean Conference” in Malta— Indonesia is organising this year’s edition in Bali in October. In addition to governments, the conference will involve private companies, civil society, NGOS, and academia from different parts of the world—all committed to achieve the SDG goal of “Life Below Water”. “Plastic in the oceans is a big catastrophe in the making,” the ambassador said at the end of our talk. “As statistics have showed, by 2050 there might be more plastic than fish in the seas if stern action is not taken to act to protect our oceans.”

“Building infrastructure needs funding, and many European countries are investing in Indonesia.”