Bandar Seri Begawan. Indonesia backs ASEAN’s plan to reach a trade agreement with the European Union (EU), although the groups have not decided when they should start the formal negotiations.

Brunei Darussalam hosted the ASEAN-EU ministerial talks on Tuesday, where the economic powerhouses reaffirmed their commitment to strike a bloc-to-bloc free trade agreement (FTA) in the future.

Deputy Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir confirmed that such a plan was in the pipeline. If followed through, it could be a win-win as the world grapples with tariff hikes.

“[A region-to-region deal] will expand market access for ASEAN and EU businesses. It’s going to be very strategic. Today, we see many countries wanting to close their own market,” Arrmanatha said in a post-meeting media interview.

“Our cooperation must not be merely symbolic. It should be something that ASEAN and EU people can feel. An example is the FTA.” 

Some individual ASEAN economies have been trying to seal a tariff-slashing deal with the EU over the past decade to expand market access.

Singapore and Vietnam were the first to successfully do so. Indonesia’s treaty with the EU is nearing the finish line. However, it remains subject to “legal scrubbing”. This process of making sure the text is legally sound is set to finish next month before the ratification process in the second half, according to the Foreign Ministry. The zero-tariff treatment for Europe-bound Indonesian goods will go live in January.

Negotiations with Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia remain a work in progress.

“The intent to create an FTA goes back a very long time, but ASEAN did not have a trade agreement with the EU back then. Now that we have some treaties in place and a few more to come,” Arrmanatha said. 

The diplomat went on to say that the finished agreements could provide impetus to the upcoming accord, citing the similarities between the ASEAN members with an EU accord and those who don’t.

Arrmanatha added: “So it should be easier for Cambodia and Laos to have a [region-to-region] accord without having to go through individual pacts.”

A 63-point joint statement published after the ministerial talks wrote that the two clubs would advance towards an FTA “in the longer term”.

The European grouping's top diplomat Kaja Kallas also told reporters that “the EU is and will remain a reliable and predictable partner” to ASEAN.

ASEAN-EU two-way merchandise trade hit around $320 billion in 2025, the Southeast Asian group’s data showed. The EU has pumped $19.9 billion into ASEAN, making it the former’s third top external source of foreign direct investment.

For Indonesia alone, the EU’s export-import activities to Southeast Asia’s biggest economy totaled $30.4 billion in 2024.

Government estimates show that the figure can more than double once the Indonesia-EU deal enters into force.