ABSTRACT
The peace-building success of the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM) has been a stepping stone facilitating the European Union's (EU) expansion of its international profile and consolidating the EU's security perspective to Asia. This chapter discusses the central features of the EU as an actor and normative actor based on the empirical evidence. The chapter acknowledged that NTS challenges promoted the continuous asymmetry in the ASEAN-EU relationship since they focused on the diverging socio-economic developments on the inter-regional level. It further discusses the four constraints vital in understanding the EU as an actor: domestic constraints, institutional design, geographical proximity and systemic power asymmetries. The EU as an actor in relation to NTS crises only mattered to ASEAN on a case-by-case basis and with particular regard to development and humanitarian assistance. Nevertheless, NTS provides an important and contemporary avenue of engagement. The EU understands its limitations as a latecomer in Southeast Asia.
