Research / Essay Question for the nation-wide writing contest : "What impact does regional

integration have on a countries sovereignty? Discuss with reference to ASEAN and/or the European
Union Delegation"

Integration is one of the way in minimizing the conflict and create the peaceful
world. Talking about conflict, we will never forget about the war that commonly
happened in the past. The most terrible history that always in our mind is world
war I and II which not has impact only for European but also in other countries
outside Europe. Its not imposible that world war III would be happen, so thats
why all of people arround the world are tried to make a peace and one the best
way is integration between some regions. Integration is really important where i
can conclude that the community who are integrating each other with the same
area and background and also there are some policies that must be followed by
the members such as sharing sovereignty in hope it can minimizing the conflicts
between each members(countries) and also there are regional community which
is not all of regional association has a high integrity. By integrating in some
region which has same backgroud or similarity hopefully it could minimize the
conflict that can be occur. There are so many organizations or i can say
international organizations where the members are from the countries that
located in the same area and every organization has its own objective and
characteristic. Integration is not easy, there are some threats in developing the
integration.
ASEAN is one of international organization where the members are Southeast
Asias countries and the objectivity are to built the regional coopereration or
collaboration between the members, its could be in economics or culture side in
order to achieve regional integration. But, ASEAN often compared to European
Union that has strong integration between the members and has good prospect
compare to ASEAN.
European Union is regional organization same as ASEAN, where the members are
European countries that has same objectivity. A stong integrity in association is
one important aspects where European Union achieved as we can see that they
play a role in increasing trading activity in between member countries and high
of export inside the region by contrast ASEANs members are prefered to do
trading collaboration with the partners who are outside of Southeast Asia
because they think that make a business partnership with ASEAN countries is not
profitable compared to the countries outside Southeast Asia.
Back to the history or background between European Union and ASEAN are
surely its really different. The world war are gave more impact to the European
more than asian, so thats why the people in Europe has a stonger integration
than people in Asia. Somehow they are afraid that world war III would be happen
in the future, so the regionalism which drives to be integration are grew faster in
Europe. One of characteristic in European Union is they would like to bending
their members to deal with treaty where in opposite, there are no treaty in
ASEAN because European are supranational while ASEAN are association in
another words its just multilateral cooperation so the meetings in ASEAN did not
spawned the strong institutions like in European Union and sometimes there are
no results after the meeting. The decision making is consensus it seems like
avoiding the voting, so its make that minority opinion or the rhetoric instead are
more advanced than the opinion of majority. At the end, the decision also lacks of
the consequences and cohesiveness power that intact on ASEAN countries

members. Sanction is important in organization to strenghten the bond between

each of member. In European Union there are the sanction for the country who is
violate the human right. But there are no sanction or repeal the membership for
the ASEANs member, such as Myanmar.
In regional integration, economics integration are common in society. In here,
European Union are more experienced because they practiced and the politics
has role in it at the first time when their integration was begun while in ASEAN
there are no role of politics in economic integration and also integration in ASEAN
are doubtful between businesses and policy makers to the benefits of integration
and this kind of problem make the integration in ASEAN is slowly. Beside of that,
sovereignty issues of the nation are becoming trend and important issues in
integration. In supranational or we can say European Union, the members are
dealed to run their partial sovereignty together by sharing their partial
sovereignty to the supranational institution where the policy or provision and
also law are provided that bond the nation or the citizen. On the other hand,
ASEAN or intergovernmental are rejected to share their sovereignty and they
also have the veto or the rights to denied the regionals deals. Because there are
nio sharing sovereignty and also has the veto so its need the policy of nation to
coordinate that can bond the members more stronger.
In my opinion,
sovereignty is the authority for a country
Related to the sovereignty issue, there some critics which often posed towards
the agreement of economic integrity that integration will reduce the sovereignty
of the nation in order to make a coordination policy together by sharing partial
sovereignty to the supranational institution. But sometimes the nation who are
smaller are worried by sharing their sovereignty for example America and
Canada because they afraid that the power of trading are getting lower in
market. But actually, the nation-states are permitted to adopt the policy which is
different to another country in case to keep the nations importance as long as
no discrimination between each the members and as we know that European
Union is great in mixing the diffrences between the members so there are no gap
between the small and the large country.
So, economic integration which resulted the reducing of sovereignty in one
country is not become an enemy toward the varieties in economic policy and
also the conflict that could be occured between the economic interest and
economic integrity and national sovereignty are can be solve if its running
together.
Recently, there are so many opinions about ASEAN and European Union. One of
them are says that ASEAN is imitation community who is copied or mocked from
the European Union. Thats why ASEAN is considered incomplete because it does
not much looks like the example or model. And also ASEAN deemed incapable of
resolving conflicts and unite the difference, unlike the European Union.
Therefore, ASEAN is a community of imitation.
But if we look more deep, when its organization was formed, ASEAN is not
political community like the European community nor is it a defense pact like
NATO. Since the beginning of the European Community does have a target to
share some sovereignty to the community in order to form a supranational
government that can ensure regional stability. In contrast to the ASEAN whose
purpose is to manage the joint sovereignty of the entire policy in order not to

violate the sovereignty of other countries so as to support regional stability, not

to share some sovereignty to a supranational government. ASEAN also do not
have a common enemy that makes a defense pact to ensure mutual security, nor
is there any military cooperation and military planning to maintain regional
security, differs from NATO, so ASEAN also not a defense community. Since its
inception, ASEAN does not imitate anything in the form of a trait and therefore
ASEAN's image in fact, with all its shortcomings, it is not an imitation.
It is noticeable that ASEAN establish themselves to maintaining the identity of
eastern-Malay and do not follow the pattern offered by the western world. ASEAN
is not made so interested to surrender its sovereignty, willingly or by force, but is
designed to be a tool for ASEAN member countries to gain importance. ASEAN
also does not impose a structural equation, both in politics and economy,
because of the inevitable cultural diversity of each country that is in ASEAN.
Basically, ASEAN only enter values in the eastern Malay norms are of course
many have different and deviations if interpreted in a western pattern, especially
juxtaposed with the European Union.
But i think that indeed share some sovereignty to a supranational body is not a
decision for one-two days. Adoption of the supranational mechanism feared
could instead turn into a boomerang for the safety, tolerability, and national
integration. It probably makes sense of reluctance to share some sovereignty
was even greater. But the problem, regional and international integration
requires supranational mechanism which must be carried out voluntarily or
without coercion by individual member states combined region. In addition, it
should be strengthened by the thought that by uniting, the countries that
integrate it will be stronger. Even so, the anxiety of the existence of
supranational bodies was a natural thing because no one government also hoped
the chaos in their country. It may be a concern and prudence that make the
integration process is slow.
In conclusion ASEAN is regional association which has low integration compared
to European Union which has strong integration. The diffrences between ASEAN
and European Union are clearly stated above that the members of Europen union
should share or pool some of their sovereignty, in contrast ASEAN rejected to
share some sovereignty. The policy that the countries who are member of
European Union should share some sovereignty to the institution (supranational
institution) are mostly welcome by European countries. Sharing the sovereignty
is one impact from the integration for a nation. Actually, share some sovereignty
is not a nightmare that we should afraid for. By integrating with another nations
and also some of our soverignty is running together it ll make a strong benefits
to the members. Ofcourse for some strong and large countries its hard to give
the sovereinty such as United Kingdom even its one of European Union member.
But generally, majority of European already did it (share the sovereignty) even
its only small part because they get the benefits by doing that and also by
sharing sovereignty the nations are feel more safe because the safety are
guaranteed and they will not feel alone if the problems come. There are many
regional organizations are formed in the world are becoming regional integration
in order to keep the peace and made the stronger relationship between each
member in the same regions which is important for safety and collaboration that
could be grow the economics in the nations by togetherness and borderless.