Indonesia, Sweden will play a leading role in Bloc-to-Bloc Clean Energy Collaboration
Jakarta. Indonesia will lead the ASEAN bloc in 2023, and in the same year Sweden takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union. The green transition will likely be a large part of the cooperation as the two countries lead the world’s two major trade blocs, according to a Swedish envoy.
“As for the overlapping presidencies, we have not decided exactly yet [the area of cooperation]. But definitely, it will be close to a green transition,” Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia Marina Berg said at the Sweden-Indonesia Sustainability Partnership (SISP) event in Jakarta on Monday.
“This includes trying to find ways of cooperation even more effectively, deeper and wider cooperation in the green transition,” Berg added.
According to Berg, the two presidencies – backed by regular political dialogues between the two countries – would serve as an excellent opportunity to deepen political and business relations.
“We look forward to working with the Indonesian government to identify concrete prospects for joint action in areas of mutual interest,” she said.
Per-Arne Hjelmborn, Director General for Trade at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the EU-ASEAN presidencies in 2023 could help strengthen the partnership between regions.
“Cooperation in many areas, but not least in connection and transport. But also to continue developing sustainable methods across the board,” said Hjelmborn at the SISP conference in 2022.
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The EU and ASEAN have entered into a comprehensive agreement on air transport, marking the world’s first block-to-block cooperation of its kind.
“This agreement reflects the growing ambition to connect the European region with ASEAN,” Hjelmborn said.
The EU wrote on its official website that the agreement would open up more air transport opportunities and improve direct connections between the two regions while upgrading rules and standards for the flights concerned.
Early next year, the Czech Republic will hand over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU to Sweden. Indonesia will take over the ASEAN seat in 2023 from Cambodia.
Free trade agreement between the EU and Indonesia
Indonesia and the EU are currently working on a free trade agreement, which is expected to create new market access, among other things. Negotiations on the free trade agreement have been ongoing since 2016.
“We have been working on establishing a free trade agreement for some time. It is of course one of the issues for the Swedish presidency to take forward next year, says Berg.
The EU-Indonesia held its eleventh round of negotiations in November 2021. The EU reported that both sides had reached an agreement on the Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) chapter.
The EU claimed that it was Indonesia’s fifth largest trading partner in 2020. Bilateral trade in goods reached €20.6 billion (about $21.7 billion) in 2020, with EU exports worth €7.2 billion and its imports at 13.3 billion euros, according to EU data showed. The Indonesian government reported that bilateral trade between Sweden and Indonesia amounted to 800 million dollars in 2021, an increase of about 33 percent from the previous year.